


The Trail of the Hunted

by Pelandreth



Series: The Wanderer [2]
Category: Kenshi (Video Game)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-20
Updated: 2019-06-03
Packaged: 2020-03-08 07:42:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 59,464
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18890194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pelandreth/pseuds/Pelandreth
Summary: A woman and her bonedog lead a band of escaped slaves across the desert. A doctor wanted by the Holy Nation seeks refuge in enemy territory alongside a Shek and a Scorchlander. And two mercenaries and a girl with a Skeleton limb face the task of capturing four criminals on the run. Nobody ever said things were easy in the wasteland.





	1. Mercenary

The town of Bark, tucked away between rolling sand dunes and a glittering ocean, never saw much excitement. The guards were permanently bored and half drunk, and the occasional bar fight was the most interesting thing that ever happened. There was little work to be found in these parts, and Ceras had often considered heading out to Sho-Battai or one of the bigger desert cities, but the quiet suited him. And as long as he was still able to pay his tab, he wasn’t all that concerned about turning much of a profit.

Yesterday, however, had been an odd day. Ceras hadn’t even needed to leave the bar to know that something had happened. The samurai had been in and the samurai had left, and in the distance there had been the crashing sound of people’s front doors being broken down. Evidently they were looking for someone, and if the persistent noise was anything to go by, they had not found their targets.

“Whole town still seems to be under lockdown,” Kuto grumbled as he came back from his recon mission. “Great. Another day where we aren’t getting hired.”

Ceras was less concerned. “Just sit down and have a drink.”

“Urgh.” Kuto sat down with a grunt. “Drinking in this damn bar for weeks on end. I hate this place. When do we get to taste battle again? My sword hand is itchin’…”

“Why taste battle when you can taste Bark’s finest grog?” Ceras drained his cup. In actuality, the weak piss-water wasn’t much to write home about, but in large enough quantities, it was a useful amnesiac. “Though, I think the sake is better.”

Kuto just scowled.

“Oh c’mon, lighten up.”

“Lighten up? Lighten _up_? Our company’s moved on, and _I’m_ stuck here with _you_.”

“Ain’t my fault you kept picking fights. Fighting when you ain’t getting paid for it… not to mention how expensive it usually turns out. You realise, don’t you, the reason we haven’t been banned from here is coz I’m such a loyal patron?”

“Coz you’re a stinkin’ drunk, more like. Stinkin’ drunk with no honour, and you think that’ll get people to hire you? Nobody wants to hire a stinkin’, honourless drunkard…”

“All right, three-horns. Calm your tits.”

Kuto’s hand went to the sword on his back. “Call me that again, flatskin, and I will end you.”

The barkeep glared at the pair of them. There were still sword marks on the wall from the last time Kuto had picked a fight. Ceras decided it was probably wise to back down – aside from enjoying all his limbs in one piece, he didn’t want to be thrown out of the bar and saddled with a bill for damages. “Sorry, sorry.”

“H’mph.” Kuto took his hand off his sword, very slowly. The barkeep visibly relaxed and went back to dusting the shop counter.

“If you’re done with threatening me,” Ceras said, “I need a piss.”

He lurched out of the bar, almost tripping on the steps outside. The outhouse, where was the outhouse? He gave up his search and opted to go in the sea instead, but keeping his balance proved difficult and he nearly fell into the water at several points. As he was tugging up his trousers, he became aware of a disapproving figure standing behind him.

“Oh, hey. Didn’t realise you wanted to use this ocean as well. I hope I haven’t left it in too much of a state for…” He trailed off. The small part of his brain that wasn’t entirely drunk screamed _Run_. “My lady.”

Lady Sanda’s lip curled. “You’re a mercenary, aren’t you?”

“Yes, my lady. Best in the land.” Ceras suppressed a belch.

“I see.” Lady Sanda did not sound as if she saw. “Guards, stand by.”

The four guards flanking her stood to attention. Ceras barely had time to process what she had just said. Lady Sanda drew her cleaver and sprang forward, the sharp edge of the blade going straight for Ceras’s shoulder. He leapt back, his _nodachi_ rising to meet it. At the last moment, Lady Sanda stopped and withdrew her cleaver. “Hmm. Even drunk you’re not too bad. You’ll do.”

“Wha’?” Ceras said blankly.

At that moment Kuto, having heard Ceras talking to someone outside, appeared on the steps of the bar. He stopped when he saw Lady Sanda and dropped to one knee. Lady Sanda waved a hand at him. “Get up.”

“My lady,” Kuto grunted. “To what do we owe this pleasure?”

“Are there any more of you?” Lady Sanda said.

“No, my lady. Just us two.”

“Naturally,” muttered Lady Sanda, but she just shook her head. “Well, it can’t be helped, I suppose. You two. Follow me.”

“But I got a tab…” Ceras’s protest was interrupted by a swift kick to the shins from his comrade. It was not a gentle kick, either; Kuto had never been one to do things by halves.

“Don’t backchat. She’s a fucking noble.”

The two men followed Lady Sanda along the beach and out onto the spit. Beyond the spit was a small island, joined to the mainland by a bridge. Ceras had spent many months in Bark, but had never set foot on Lady Sanda’s island. He fell into step beside Kuto, who was looking even grimmer than his usual self. Despite his drunken haze, Ceras could sense Kuto’s unease. It was not every day that a noble invited two down-on-their-luck mercenaries to her house.

Inside, the noble house was strangely empty. Ceras opened his mouth to comment on the surprising lack of guards, but Kuto glared at him until he shut it. Aside from a few United Cities samurai patrolling the place – who were most certainly _not_ Lady Sanda’s usual hooded guards – there seemed to be very few employees about at all. In fact, the only other person in the room apart from them and the four guards was a woman, sitting at a table spattered with old bloodstains.

“Sit,” Lady Sanda said.

Ceras and Kuto sat down opposite the woman. Ceras tried to smile at her, but she only glared. Lady Sanda took her own seat, which was a considerable distance away from the two mercenaries, and folded her hands on the table.

“As you may be aware,” she began, “there was an… _incident_ two nights ago.”

Kuto and the woman nodded. Ceras, not quite sure what was going on, copied them. _Look smart, don’t look like you just drank six cups of Bark’s finest grog._ “Incident. Yes. Incident.”

Kuto kicked him again, right on the fresh bruise. Ceras glared at him. _What did I do wrong now?_

Lady Sanda was looking as though she was regretting her invitation. “In brief, I had an arrangement with someone. She did not uphold her end of the deal and fled town with three of her friends and a filthy cur. I want them found.”

“Aren’t the samurai gonna look for them?” Ceras said.

There was a silence. The woman at the table winced. Lady Sanda considered Ceras for a long second before replying. “The town guards have already proven to be incompetent. I must ensure Bark is safe and I cannot spare anyone more capable to leave on a patrol. Besides, it would be a waste of resources to send samurai out after petty criminals… no matter how much I would like to see that.”

“Just get them on some trumped-up charge. That’s how you nobles normally operate, right?”

More silence. Lady Sanda’s thin-lipped mouth stretched into something that vaguely resembled a smile. “It would seem that I can _certainly_ spare you.” She nodded at the woman. “Marisa, the posters, if you would.”

Marisa laid a small stack of slightly crumpled, hand-drawn posters in the centre of the table. Ceras picked one up. A drawing of a Greenlander woman with a long braid and a pair of square goggles glared at him from the paper. He had a vague sense he had seen her about somewhere before.

“Hey, I know this one!” Kuto said, staring at his own poster. Ceras craned his neck to look, and found himself confronted with the inky likeness of a scowling, hornless Shek. “She’s the one who cut off my horn.”

Of course… Ceras now knew where he’d seen the Greenlander. They’d all been together in the bar, that night Kuto had decided to pick a fight with the no-horns. The barkeep had banned those four, and Ceras had been eternally thankful that he had not banned him and Kuto at the same time. After all, there was only one watering hole in Bark.

“Well,” Lady Sanda said, “in that case, you’ll be aware of what she’s capable of. The two Shek they have are strong fighters, but the two humans are weak. If you can take out the hornless brute, you can probably take out the humans and the other Shek.”

“Take out the hornless brute.” Kuto slipped the bounty poster into his pocket. “I’ll see to that myself.”

Lady Sanda handed them each a sack of coin. “Five thousand cats, up front. The rest of your payment is on successful delivery. If you can’t bring back the Shek or the Scorchlander, bring back the Okranite, the Greenlander. She’s going to learn a harsh lesson.” She handed Ceras a scroll. “Signed by me. In case anyone doubts you.”

Marisa coughed. “Um… what about me?”

“Oh, yes. You’ll be going with them.”

Ceras, Kuto and Marisa all stared at each other in surprise.

“But… I can’t walk,” Marisa said, as if Lady Sanda had overlooked the obvious.

Lady Sanda gestured to one of the guards, who disappeared behind a partition and returned carrying a long metal box. He laid it down on the table in front of Marisa and snapped back to attention. Marisa glanced at Lady Sanda for permission, then slid the lid off the box. Her eyes widened as she saw what was inside.

“And that’s your payment,” Lady Sanda said. “You’d better learn how to use it quickly.”

Marisa struggled up from her seat, clinging to a crutch with one hand, and went to remove the robotic limb from its box. It was as she rose that Ceras realised her left leg was missing just above the knee. From the pain on her face and the bandages still around the stump, it had to be a recent injury. He got up to help her, but she waved his hands away and picked up the metal leg one-handed.

“Given how you were the only person who made any move to stop her leaving,” Lady Sanda said to Marisa, “I saw fit to reward you for it.”

“Thank you, my lady,” Marisa said brokenly.

“The design should allow you to move a little more efficiently than a normal limb. Except through water. Don’t get it wet, it’ll destroy the mechanics. But you should be able to make good pace through the desert.”

Marisa tentatively propped the leg against the stool, sat down, began the process of securing it to the stump. As she was doing so, Lady Sanda turned to the other two. “I want them brought to _me_ , all right? They don’t have to be entirely in one piece, but alive is better than dead. Especially the Greenlander – oh, what do you want?” she said irritably to the Hiver who had just burst into the noble house.

The Hiver took several minutes to get his breath back. His samurai uniform was covered in sand, as if he had tripped and fallen several times on his run. “They sent me as a messenger,” he panted. “The slave camp… Lord Haga…”

“ _What_ about Lord Haga? Spit it out, bugman. I haven’t got all day.”

“He’s dead.”

Ceras’s jaw dropped. Marisa stopped adjusting the straps of her leg and looked up. Lady Sanda had turned slightly pale.

“What do you mean he’s _dead_?” she said slowly.

“Murdered, my lady. Head taken clean off and hung on the door to his own house. We’re sending messengers to all the nobles in case it was the first of a series of attacks. The stone camp is empty, everyone in there is… well, _dead_ , but we did find an escaped slave out in the desert. We interrogated him, naturally, and he said the camp was liberated by four women and a bonedog.”

His spiel finished, the worker drone fainted. Lady Sanda let out a furious screech. The guards hurried to drag the samurai away, but Lady Sanda shook her head. “Not _him_. Get him some water or something.” She grabbed the poster from Ceras’s hands, and glared at it intensely. “Oh, Ava. You and your little friends are going _down_.”

“Are the samurai getting involved now?” Ceras sensed his opportunity for meaningful employment slipping away from him. Kuto didn’t even bother to kick him.

“Yes! Of course! All the towns will be sending out patrols. But…” Lady Sanda stared wildly at the three of them. “They’ll be expecting patrols. They won’t be expecting mercenaries. The hire’s still on. Any bounty you claim is yours to keep.”

The Hiver was stirring on the floor. The guards had taken Lady Sanda’s instructions literally, and had thrown water on his face to rouse him. Lady Sanda was looking bewildered. “How could four people with only two good fighters between them murder an entire slave camp?”

Ceras shuddered. The hire was looking a little less appealing now. “It’s definitely the same people, right?”

“Bugman!” Lady Sanda snapped at the samurai. “The four women. Describe them.”

“Oh, uh… I think he said two of them were Shek, but neither had horns… escaped slaves, he seemed to think they were, and one of them had a dog. Then this Greenlander woman let him out of his cage, at which point he escaped through the gate. He wasn’t sure about the other woman, he just heard her voice. Didn’t sound like she came from around here though.”

“It’s the same group,” Lady Sanda said. To Ceras, Kuto and Marisa, she added, “Find them.”

“And bring them back here, my lady?” Marisa wavered.

“No. They’re enemies of the United Cities, now.” Lady Sanda smiled grimly. “They’ll be going somewhere far worse. When you find them, take them to Tengu’s Vault.”

Ceras barely repressed a shudder. Tengu’s Vault was rarely spoken of, and when it was, it was with fear. Nobody who went into the Emperor’s prison ever returned to tell the tale of what it was like in there, but it had been said to drive many men to madness.

“As I’ve said before,” Lady Sanda said, “I don’t tolerate terrorism, and neither does the United Cities. It’s a kinder fate than any of them deserve.”

 

* * *

 

Their progress across the sands had been maddeningly slow.

Rei could just make out the hills of Bast in the distance, blurred by the heatwave but still tantalisingly close. It should have been a day’s walk, but with so many underfed slaves in the group, nobody was making a good pace. They’d walked through most of the night, not quite daring to set up camp in case the samurai had found the ruins of the slave town sooner than expected. Rei’s feet ached in her boots, and she could feel blisters rubbing at her heels, but walking barefoot in the hot desert dust didn’t exactly appeal either.

At least no-one was complaining. The escaped slaves walked together in twos and threes, many spread out across the sands. Rei came to a stop to allow them to catch up and rest, the third time she’d had to do this in half an hour.

“Everyone OK for water?” she said, hoping they’d say yes. They’d have to ration the water until they found a stream or reached World’s End – whichever came first. The slaves, who were streaming with sweat, all nodded. For once, Rei didn’t press the issue.

As they walked on and the sun began to sink on their second day in the desert, Rei found the niggling voices in her head more and more difficult to ignore.

_Look at this one, she thinks she can lead. Do you think anyone is happy about that? Do you really think those people are happy about taking instructions from a teenager? What are you, eighteen? Nineteen? Can you even remember? You don’t even know the most basic things about yourself, never mind surviving in a desert wilderness._

The voices of doubt always sounded like Lord Haga. If Rei closed her eyes, she could almost see his severed head grinning at her from the door of the noble house. She shuddered and kept her eyes determinedly open. His head was rotting in her mind. Sometimes she pictured it covered with flies, the eyes gone, the lips curled back and the stench of death and lavender choking all life around it. Why couldn’t she be free of the image? She’d gotten her revenge. She’d killed him.

She’d killed others, too.

Rei knew the real reason Kat had opted not to go with her on this walk of madness. She’d seen what Rei was capable of. Rei wondered if she had gone too far, if she was becoming as bad as the slavers who had made both their lives hell.

 _No_ , she tried to tell herself.

 _Yes_ , crooned Lord Haga delightedly. _You’re not so different, no matter what you try and tell yourself._

“Shut up,” Rei muttered.

“Sorry,” Bland said quickly, breaking her out of her thoughts.

“What? Oh, no. Ignore me.” Rei smiled at him. “What were you saying?”

“I was saying we need to rest. Spade’s been carrying the Scorchlander most of the way, and Mag can’t walk that far without Jumper’s help.” The names completely slid off Rei’s tired mind; she’d heard them before, but she couldn’t connect any with a face. Mag, she presumed, was the older woman who’d had to be coaxed out of her cage before she would leave. She thought Spade might have been the Shek woman who always hung around with Jared, one of the Shek men. “And _you_ look like you can barely keep your eyes open. Come on. We’ve got to set up camp.”

“But the samurai…”

“They’ll catch up with us if we’re tired, too.”

Rei squinted ahead of her. They were nearly out of the desert and into the arid hills of Bast. If they could reach the town before they rested, they would be significantly safer. But it would be night at that point, and Rei knew they were no match for whatever might attack them under a cover of darkness.

“OK,” she said. “We’ll stop here.”

They settled down in the sands just east of Bast. Rei took a headcount; there were thirteen of them, fourteen including Scrap. The bonedog was lying in the sand, his tongue lolling as he panted. Even he was too exhausted to go much further. They huddled together for warmth against the desert night, and Rei found herself falling asleep with Scrap’s furry body tucked against her chest.

She was awoken suddenly, by shouts. Bland, who seemed to be the healthiest and most alert of the slaves, was already on his feet, kicking her awake. Rei yelled in her panic, and Scrap snarled at him.

“Skimmers!” Bland said, eyeing the defensive bonedog. “Four of them.”

“It’s all right, Scrap,” Rei said, trying to soothe both herself and Scrap. The knotted scar on her side, hidden under her shirt, stung in memory of the last time she’d encountered skimmers. She stumbled to her feet, the dust clinging to her legs as if reluctant to let her go, and began pulling the other slaves up. The skimmer was far too close, and it was making a beeline for the people who were standing.

“Nobody move!” one of the Greenlanders shouted from the ground. “Lie in the sand. Pretend to be unconscious.”

Would that be enough? Rei was pretty sure skimmers only fed on corpses, and didn’t eat their prey alive, but it was a risky gamble to bet anyone’s life on. She broke into a run, and seeing her do so, several of the slaves followed suit.

But the skimmer was too fast. Rei swung out wildly with her fragment axe, blocking one of its attacks, but it had already taken one of the slaves down. Her next strike caught the skimmer in its leg, and it skittered in pain, but the blow had angered it more than it had disabled it. It lunged, its fanged beak going straight for Rei’s head. She threw up an arm to defend herself, and the fangs sank into bony plate. She screamed. The other skimmers, attracted by the noise, converged.

Rei could do nothing. Her left arm was now too weak to properly support the fragment axe, and with four skimmers about to attack… All she could do was hope that she would be able to buy time for the others to get away.

It was then that she realised she was the only one still standing. How many of the slaves were lying still in the hopes the creatures would lose interest, and how many were seriously injured or worse? Remembering what the Greenlander had said, she allowed herself to collapse. The dust billowed around her, filling her lungs, but she forced herself not to cough. She lay still in the sand, her eyes closed, hoping that nothing would give her away as still being conscious.

Something touched her leg. Panic welled inside her, and it was all she could do not to scream. It was not until a hand shook her by the shoulder that she finally opened her eyes.

“Oh good, you’re awake,” Bland said.

Rei sat up. People were stirring all around her, but the slaves who’d run away with her were still lying silently on the sand. The Greenlander woman who’d ordered the group not to move was hurrying towards them, a medikit in her hand.

“You hurt?” Bland asked when Rei did not speak.

Rei indicated her arm with a grimace. The sun was slowly rising, but it was still too dark to see much. Still, from what she could tell the skimmer’s fangs had pierced right through the bone plate and into the soft flesh beneath. “It’ll heal. Where’s Scrap?”

“I don’t know,” Bland said. “I’m sorry.”

Rei stumbled to her feet. “Scrap!”

She eventually found him cowering behind a large rock. He whimpered as she approached, as if ashamed of abandoning his mistress.

“Hey, it’s OK, Scrap. There was nothing you could have done to help me.” She coaxed him forward and checked him over as he licked her face. He seemed unharmed. “Thank fuck.”

“Oy, you.” The Greenlander woman was striding towards Rei, her hands reddened with blood. Rei hurriedly straightened up. Scrap, who was still scared, hid behind her legs as the woman approached.

“Thanks for the warning,” Rei said. “About the skimmers.”

“Yeah, well, you didn’t take it, did you?”

Rei blinked, taken aback by the anger in the woman’s tone.

“Are you a complete idiot or what? _You_ might have been able to outrun the skimmers for a while, but it’s not like the other two could. You could have gotten them killed because you didn’t listen to what I had to say. I fucking know about skimmers, all right? Next time, fucking _listen_.”

The woman strode off. Rei sank to the ground, shaking.

 _Well, you tried_ , Lord Haga said smarmily.

“Shut up.”

_But face facts, you’re no leader. You’re just a scared little girl with a big sword and a little dog._

“Shut _up_!” Her shout was loud enough to send a number of confused looks her way.

_And now you just look completely insane._

“Are you all right?” Bland said, walking over to her.

“I’m fine.”

“Look… don’t mind Lekko. She has a _thing_ about skimmers, always has done. Don’t take it to heart. She was just afraid of losing the group.”

“It’s not about that,” Rei said. “It’s about the fact I made a stupid decision and nearly got people killed.”

Bland made to put a hand on her shoulder, then thought better of it. “I _do_ know you, don’t I? You were enslaved with the rest of us, but you escaped. When the skimmers were at the gate that day. You and the other girl got away.”

Rei’s eyes widened in sudden realisation. “You were the slave who tried to escape at the same time.”

“Yeah. But skimmers.” He winced at the memory. “The slavers were none too pleased with me, but y’know… I’m worth money to them. Or was. So they patched me up, sent me back.” He looked Rei over. “You were the one who cut his head off, weren’t you?”

It took Rei a second to realise he was referring to Lord Haga. “That was what killed him.”

“I’m glad. That it was you. I mean…” He trailed off. “I’m guessing he…”

“Yeah. I don’t wanna talk about it.”

“No, of course not.” Bland immediately backed away. “Well, when you’re ready, come back to the rest of the group. You should probably get that arm seen to at the same time. After all, we need our leader in one piece.”


	2. Sand

“You know,” said Kat, “I’m really starting to get sick of sand.”

“Yeah?” Ava said, not taking her eyes off the map. “Well, I’m really starting to get sick of your complaints.”

The words stung, even more so than the grit currently blowing into Kat’s eyes. “Not of all of us get the luxury of wearing _goggles_.”

“Guys,” Ruka said.

“They’re modified goggles,” Ava snapped. “I can’t see properly without them.”

“Nor can I! Because I have _fucking sand_ in my face.” Kat didn’t mean to sound pissy, but the blowing sand was yet another thing to pile onto what was already turning out to be a miserable and stressful journey. “So I’m sorry for _complaining_ , but my eyes are hurting and we’re stuck in the middle of yet another dust storm and I bet there’ll be samurai after us by now.”

“Stop! Both of you.” Ruka had wrapped a length of cloth around the lower half of her face as a defence against the sand, and her voice was slightly muffled. That, together with the fact that she had said very little ever since they’d set out, meant Kat took a second to realise she had spoken. “Save your damn energy for walking. Not talking.”

“I think you’ll find…” Ava began.

With a grunt Ruka grabbed her, throwing her over her good shoulder like a doll. Ava yelled in protest, hitting Ruka’s back with her fists, but soon lapsed into a dust-induced coughing fit.

“Put me… _urgh_ … down!”

“Sorry Ava, but with your leg like it is, you’re currently the one slowing us down the most.”

Kat hurried after Ruka, limping slightly. Her knee injury had only been a mild strain, although had she not been as small and skinny as she was, it would undoubtedly have been much worse. She had to walk at a fast pace just to keep Ruka in her sights, and considered asking her to slow down, but given their original speed it was something of a relief to be making better progress through the desert.

It was some time before the wind abated enough for them to be able to see where they were going, and at this point it was starting to get dark. Ruka came to a stop at the side of a sand dune and helped Ava off her shoulder. Ava scowled at her but did not speak.

“Where are we?” Kat asked.

“We should be near the Spine Canyon,” Ava said falteringly.

The three of them looked around. There was nothing in any direction except sand, and a lot of it. Certain they were mistaken, they went up the side of the sand dune to get a better vantage point, but the results were the same. The distinctive plateaus of the Spine Canyon were nowhere in sight.

“We must have gotten turned around,” Ruka said.

Ava rounded on her. “This is _your_ fault. If you hadn’t picked me up, I’d have been able to navigate…”

“Do _not_ blame me for this…”

But Ava clearly wasn’t in the mood to _not_. “I was concentrating! And now we’re lost in the desert. This map is useless without any kind of landmark to guide us.” She crumpled it in her fist and sank onto the dune, head in her hands. “We’re fucked.”

Kat let out a sudden hiss of pain.

“Something wrong?” Ruka said.

“I’m fine… think I ate something dodgy.”

“Things spoil quick in the heat. Here, have some water.” Ruka passed her a waterskin. Kat went to take a swig, but recoiled from the smell.

“This isn’t water.”

“Sorry. My bad.” Ruka took it off her, drank deeply from it, and passed Kat a second waterskin. Ava was staring in disbelief.

“Is that _alcohol_?”

“What do _you_ think?” Ruka offered Ava some, but she shoved the waterskin away.

“You drunken idiot! We have limited space for water, and you waste it with _sake_?”

“Keeps me sane,” Ruka shot back. “Some of us have had to deal with a serious amount of bullshit recently, so maybe you should stop being so uptight about the fact I have a coping mechanism and you don’t.”

“That’s _not a coping mechanism_!”

Fed up of the bickering, and feeling the pains in her lower body increasing, Kat stumbled away from the two of them and down the side of the sand dune. She squatted in the shadows, hugging her knees, willing the discomfort away.

A sudden suspicion occurred to her.

_Oh please no, not now…_

She unbuckled her belt, sliding down her trousers to her knees. Her suspicions were immediately confirmed.

“Well, fuck.”

It was better than food poisoning, and she knew she ought to take it as a good sign that her previously half-starved body was slowly returning to normal, but it could hardly have happened at a worse time. She pulled up her trousers again and hurried back up the sand dune to where Ruka and Ava were now sitting in bitter silence.

“Um…” Her first instinct had been to go to Ava for help, but Ava had been in a snippy mood ever since they’d left the slave camp. Instead she tapped Ruka on the shoulder.

“You OK?” Ruka said, taking in Kat’s stricken expression.

“I’m bleeding.”

“Ava has a first aid… wait. Oh.” Realisation dawned on Ruka’s face. “ _That_ kind of bleeding.”

“It’s been six months… I’d sort of forgotten it was a thing…”

“Alright, don’t panic. I got ya covered.” Ruka grabbed her backpack from the sand and tossed it at Kat’s feet. “There should be things in there. Feel free to use some of my water if you need to clean yourself up.”

“No… you’ll need it…”

“We’ll find somewhere to refill before long. This desert isn’t endless. Just be sparing with it.”

Kat left, returning ten minutes later feeling a little cleaner, but no less subdued. Ava was tucked away in her sleeping bag a good distance from them, but Ruka was still awake.

“Better?”

Kat nodded. “Thank you.”

“Hey, no worries. You gonna be OK when we start moving again?”

“Hopefully.” Kat sat down beside her. “How’s your shoulder by the way?”

“Healing.” Ruka rubbed at it absently. Ava had re-bandaged it earlier to stop the sand getting in the wound. “Wish it would heal up quicker. I’m sick of being useless.” She took a long drink from the waterskin and held it out to Kat. “Want some?”

Kat took the sake and deliberately put it to the side, out of Ruka’s immediate reach. “You should probably save this if you want it to last.”

“I like the way you think.”

Kat sighed. “We’re in a bit of a mess, aren’t we?”

“Only for now. They won’t dare follow us into enemy faction territory. By the time we get to the Hub, we’ll be safe from them.”

“I don’t mean that.” The sun was down, and the stars were beginning to come out. Kat shivered slightly in the dropping temperature. “What I mean to say is… none of us have exactly had an easy time of things, y’know?”

“I guess.”

“I don’t blame you for drinking,” Kat said quietly.

Ruka looked at Kat as if seeing her for the first time. Her expression immediately became stricken. “I can’t believe it. I’ve spent so much time drinking to forget my own pain… and Rei’s… and Ava’s… and I’ve never even asked you about yours.”

Kat drank from the skin of sake and grimaced; she had no idea how long it had been fermenting, but it was _strong_. “It’s fine. Really, it’s fine.”

“Except it’s not, is it? Look, I may be dumb, but I’m not _completely_ stupid. You’re what, seventeen? A former slave. And you’re not from the desert, you’re a swamp-lander. Yet… you’ve never once expressed any desire to go back there. There’s a story there that you’ve never told the rest of us.”

Kat stayed silent.

“I’m not asking for details, you don’t have an obligation to tell us anything about your past. But you can’t fool me. I was a damn soldier, I know suffering when I see it. Pass me that waterskin, would you?”

“You probably shouldn’t…”

“I literally just saw you drinking from it. I think you’ve lost your right to lecture me.”

Kat passed the waterskin over. “You know much about the swamps, Ruka?”

“They’re wet and full of spiders?”

“Pretty much. They’re also full of gangs. Hounds, Stone Rats, Blackshifters.” Kat listed them on her fingers. “Grayflayers, Twinblades, and then you got the Red Sabres and the Swamp Ninjas, but they’re a bit less organised. Oh, and everyone hates each other.”

“Sounds like a fun place to grow up.”

“Yeah, Shark is always on the brink of collapse. Everyone fighting, and then the spiders joining in, it’s a wonder there’s anybody left.”

“I can see why you wouldn’t want to go back there.”

Kat hugged her knees and looked up at the early stars. “It’s a bit more complicated than that. My parents owed the Twinblades money, once upon a time, and… yeah, I was raised by my grandmother after that. Only the Twinblades went to my grandmother wanting the money, and my grandmother didn’t have it, what with the Stone Rats extorting cats out of us all the time. They run a sort of protection racket. Only the Stone Rats didn’t care to protect us coz we couldn’t exactly pay them either. If I hadn’t left when I did, the Twinblades would’ve made good on their threats and taken my kidneys.”

“Shit. That’s…”

“Yeah,” Kat said, “it wasn’t great.”

“And your grandmother, did she…”

“I’ve no idea what happened to her. She was too old to go anywhere, so she asked a family friend to get me out of the swamp in one piece. Wasn’t easy. Those damn spiders… But we got out. Shacked up in the Hub for a bit, then realised we were gonna have to find somewhere more permanent. So we took a hike through Okranite lands and ended up in the desert… which was where the skimmers got Longstoat and I got caught by the manhunters.” Kat’s voice broke at the memory. “That was the most alone I’d ever been.”

“I’m sorry,” Ruka said. “I didn’t mean to push you.”

“It’s OK.”

Ruka clapped her hand on Kat’s shoulder, hard enough to bruise. Kat winced. “What are you doing?”

“Comforting you.”

“By bashing me in the shoulder blade?”

“Oh, right. Sorry. I’m a bit drunk.”

“I can tell.”

Kat rubbed her shoulder. Ruka drank more sake. Ava rolled over in her sleeping bag, mumbling in response to something she was dreaming.

“You should probably rest up,” Ruka said.

“So should you.”

“Someone’s gotta keep a vigil.”

Privately, Kat wasn’t sure Ruka was the best person to take first watch, at least not in her current state. But her legs felt heavy with tiredness, and she didn’t argue as she climbed into her sleeping bag. “Hey, Ruka?”

“Yeah?”

“Give me the sake.”

Grumbling under her breath, Ruka handed it over. This time, Kat put the waterskin in her backpack and laid her head on the bag, using it as a pillow. “Wake me in a couple of hours, all right?”

“Gonna be a long and lonely couple of hours,” Ruka muttered, staring longingly at Kat’s backpack, but nonetheless kept watch across the sands for signs of movement. Kat curled up in the reassuring warmth of her sleeping bag, nursing the dull ache in her abdomen. The straps and buckles of the backpack dug into the side of her head, but it was more comfortable than lying with her head in the dust. As she closed her eyes, she found herself dreaming, not for the first time, of the swamps.

 

* * *

 

 

To everyone’s relief, there had been no sign of trouble in the night, and the skimmers seemed to have kept their distance. Still, Ava could not shake off the dread she felt at not knowing exactly where they were in the desert. The desert itself was not that large, in spite of its moniker as the Great Desert, but with samurai patrols after them, getting lost could be their downfall.

“The stars were out last night,” Kat said as they were packing up camp.

“Oh, really? How funny, that’s when they usually come out.” Ava had meant to sound jokey, but the words came out as bitchy and patronising. Kat, who was readjusting the straps of her backpack, glared at her.

“If you could refrain from snarking at me for _one minute_ , you would remember that it’s possible to use the stars to navigate.”

“I wasn’t trying to snark!”

“Yeah, yeah, save it. Whatever I’ve done to piss you off, I’m sorry. We want the south-west, which is _that_ way, as I’ve worked out.” Kat pointed. “With luck that’ll lead us straight to the Spine Canyon and the Skimsands. Maybe a little more west than south, but we might find some landmarks along the way.” When Ava did not reply, she added stiffly, “May I navigate?”

“Fine.” Ava gave her the map. “Just don’t lose it.”

“What the fuck is wrong with you right now? What do you think I’m going to do with the map? Make a paper beak thing out of it? Get mad at it and throw it down a sand dune? Let the wind tug it out of my hands?”

“Guys, I have a headache. Can you two please…”

Ava rounded on Ruka. “You don’t have a headache. You have a fucking hangover. Again.”

“Ava!” Kat said.

“And right now, you’re making me wish I was still drunk,” Ruka snapped at Ava.

The pain in Ava’s leg – and the ache of her bruised eye – was nothing compared to the knife twist in her guts. Kat was scowling intensely at her, and although she was shorter than Ava, Ava was the one who found herself backing away. Ruka’s expression was unreadable.

“I’m sorry,” Ava said.

“Huh.” Kat strode out in front of her, the map in her hands.

For a moment Ava thought Ruka was going to keep pace with their new navigator, but instead she fell into step beside Ava. They did not speak. Ava wasn’t sure if Ruka was expecting her to say something first, but she couldn’t find the words. They hadn’t had a proper conversation since that awkward one on the balcony just a few days prior, and Ava was determined to forget it had ever happened.

“Look,” Ruka said at last. “I know this is a stressful situation, but there’s no need to take it out on us.”

“What are you talking about? I’m not stressed.”

“Yeah, sure, and I’m not an alcoholic. The point is, we need to stop arguing among ourselves. We gotta keep our heads cool if we ever want to get out of this desert in one piece.”

“Coming from you,” Ava snorted.

“And what’s that supposed to mean?”

“You’re the one who turns slights into fights.”

Ruka’s eyes flared for a second, but then she closed them and exhaled slowly. “It may have escaped your notice, Ava, but I currently do _not_ have the strength to fight, and I probably won’t for a long time. And right now, I feel like I’m the only person who’s making any effort to stop this group from fracturing. So stop trying to pick fights with me and Kat, stop acting like a petulant teenager, and start dealing with your stress like a doctor should.”

Ava was about to reply when there came a sudden yell from Kat. The girl, who had reached the top of the sand dune they were climbing, had disappeared from sight. “Kat?”

She and Ruka hurried up the sand dune as fast as they could and looked down over the far edge. Kat was sprawled at the foot of the dune, half trapped by her own bag. “Be careful,” she called up. “The sand is _really_ …”

Ruka took a step onto the slope. Her arms windmilled as she lost balance and came cascading down the dune along with a large quantity of sand. She thudded into Kat, fell over her and landed with her face in the dust and her legs tangled up with Kat’s.

“… loose,” Kat finished, coughing in the cloud of dust Ruka had stirred up.

As Ruka helped Kat up, Ava gingerly stepped onto the loose sand. Her initial footing was fairly sturdy, but gradually the sand began to dislodge itself. Her boots slid, and she went barrelling straight into Ruka, who had moved to intercept her.

“You OK?”

Ava nodded. Ruka looked down at her for a long moment. Ava stared back. Then Ruka pinkened and released her grip on Ava’s shoulders. “Well, better move,” she said.

“Yeah.”

They were more careful descending the sand dunes after that, and Kat slowed down a little. The sun streamed down on them, and Ava could feel her skin beginning to burn. She searched in her bag for a hat to keep the worst of the sun off her face. At the front of the group, Kat seemed to be flagging.

“We should stop,” Ava said.

They came to a rest at the foot of one of the sand dunes. Ava tensed up at the sight of a pack of skimmers in the distance, but they moved past without noticing them. “How are the food supplies looking?”

“Got enough for a few days,” Kat replied, checking the bags. “We’ll have to restock in the Holy Nation.”

“Oh yeah, about that. What _is_ our plan for that, exactly?”

“If anyone asks questions, Ruka’s our servant…”

“Wonderful,” Ruka muttered.

“… and we just pass through quickly and without anyone noticing, like diarrhoea.”

Ava stared at Kat as Ruka chuckled. “I’m going to pretend you _didn’t_ just say that.”

“You’re right. It’d have been a funnier joke if we’d been passing through Gut.”

“And the bounty that I have, how are we going to…”

“Get it? Because Gut… guts…” Kat giggled, not paying attention.

“I have a _bounty_ with the _Holy Nation_ ,” Ava said a little more loudly, “so can we please stop discussing diarrhoea and start working out how we’re going to buy food when I’m wanted for heresy?”

“We don’t all have to go into the towns,” Ruka said. “They won’t have a problem with a Scorchlander.”

“ _Well_ , aside from the fact I’m a girl, and they hate women.”

The corner of Ava’s mouth twitched. “So don’t take this the wrong way or anything, but…”

Kat ran her hands through her short white hair. “ _Do_ I look like a boy?”

“Maybe if you untuck your shirt.”

“And speak from your chest,” Ruka added.

“You could probably get away with it,” Ava said.

“Wow, thanks, guys.”

“Hey,” Ava said, “think of it like a disguise.”

“Speaking of disguises and hair,” Ruka said to Ava, “you should probably cut yours.”

Ava’s hands went to her braid. “ _Cut_ it?” she echoed.

“What is it with human women and their hair?”

“What is it with Shek and their horns?” Ava shot back.

“Point taken.”

“Ruka’s right,” Kat said. “Your braid is pretty recognisable, especially with your goggles as well.”

“I’ll undo it,” Ava grumbled. “But I’m not cutting my hair – or taking my goggles off.”

She reached up and began to undo the braid. Kat watched agog with curiosity, and Ava realised Kat had never seen her with her hair loose. She plucked apart the strands of hair and shook her head, allowing it to fall over her shoulders in waves. “Any better?”

“Much better,” said Ruka. “It makes your face look less stretched.”

Kat elbowed her.

“Oh, sorry,” Ruka said, “that was meant to be tactful.”

Ava gave her a look. “I think you and I have very different ideas of what’s tactful.”

It felt strange, having her dusty hair limply hanging in her face as they continued on their way. In the end she got annoyed with it and tied it back in a loose ponytail, then shoved the hat back on her head in an attempt to pin any remaining strands in place. She remembered half the reason she had chosen such a tight hairstyle in the first place.

“Where do you think we are?” she asked Kat.

Kat fumbled with the map for a second and cast her eyes around for landmarks. “Hey, which town do you think that is?”

Ava followed the direction of Kat’s finger, squinting into the far distance. “I think it’s Stoat. It’s surrounded by reasonably flat desert, not rocky hills like Heng or Heft. It could be Sho-Battai of course, but let’s hope it isn’t, because that’ll mean we got _seriously_ turned around in that sandstorm last night.”

“Well, whatever it is, let’s avoid it,” said Ruka.

“If that’s Stoat,” Kat said, looking at the map, “we’re in the middle of this triangle.” She pointed to the cities of Stoat, Heng and Heft. “That’s not a great place to be. There’ll be samurai patrols coming out of all three cities, and even if word hasn’t reached them yet, they might remember us when word _does_ reach them.” She thought about it for a second. “You think anyone will have had time to warn them?”

“The moment the United Cities discovered the carnage we left in the stone camp, they’ll have sent out runners,” Ava said. “Hivers probably, and Hivers move fast. They can cover huge distances in a day. News might very well have already spread. It’s been, what, three days already?”

“D’you think we’ll have bounty posters?” Kat asked.

“Almost certainly.”

“I’d like to see mine.”

“You’d better hope you don’t,” Ava said darkly.

She tried not to think of her own bounty posters, which were undoubtedly pinned up in every Holy Nation city by now. Whilst Kat and Ruka would be safe in the Holy Nation – or at least, safer than they would be in United Cities territory – Ava knew she had a long way to go before she was somewhere that wouldn’t be trying to hunt her down for who she was and what she’d done.

 _I’m such a fool to have pissed off two powerful factions_ , she thought to herself, and not for the first time. If she hadn’t insisted on rescuing those two weakened slaves all that time ago, she wouldn’t be out here in the middle of the desert, on the run from the United Cities forces.

“I hope Rei’s doing OK,” Kat said.

Ava hesitated, then laid a hand on Kat’s shoulder. “I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

“Uh, guys?” Ruka was staring across the sand dunes. “I think we’re about to _not_ be fine.”

“Oh, shit.” Ava had seen them too. _Samurai_. If that was a patrol group making its way across the sands, it was the biggest patrol group she had ever seen. There had to be at least twenty of them, all marching in military formation with the light glinting off their armour.

“We need to get to low ground.” Ruka grabbed Kat and Ava by the arms, pulling them away. “It’s too exposed up here. What we really need is a sandstorm.”

But the weather, as still and sunny as it was, was not obliging. They hurried down the side of the sand dune, and behind them, they heard a shout from one of the samurai.

“Travellers! You, up there on the dunes! Please halt and allow yourselves to be searched!”

“Yeah, let’s not do that,” Kat whispered.

“Travellers! Please submit for routine checks!”

“How’s your leg?” Ruka said to Ava. “You think you can run?”

Ava nodded, though she could still feel the ache where the slaver’s club had hit her in the thigh.

“Then let’s get the hell out of here.”

They hurried away, using the sand dunes as cover. Ava moved as fast as she could, but she could feel her bandages coming loose and the heat and the sudden movement was causing her head to spin. A small hand grabbed hers, and Ava found herself being led away by Kat.

“We can’t slow down! Come on.”

Ava was sure she could hear hurrying footsteps and the clanking of armour behind her. She swallowed, her mouth feeling dry, and stumbled after Kat. Kat’s hand was growing clammy, and it was all Ava could do to keep holding on. She had no breath to offer a prayer to Okran, but her mind was racing to think of one.

_Our lord of light, the champion of the darkness and the saviour of humans…_

Were the samurai still following them? She dared not look back.

_Please have mercy on us and forgive our iniquities._

Her lungs were bursting. She could tell that Kat was tiring, too. They couldn’t outrun the samurai for long. Their best shot was to hide.

_And protect us from all servants of Narko._

Ava risked a glance over her shoulder. Two of the samurai were right on their tail. There was no way they were going to be able to lose them. “Ruka. Kat,” she whispered. “We’re going to have to stop.”

“What? No!” Kat said.

Ava slid her hand out of Kat’s grasp. Kat faltered, torn between abandoning Ava and staying by her side, and chose the latter. She stared at Ava, her eyes huge in her face, chewing at her bottom lip. It was then that Ava realised that Ruka had not followed them. _Where the fuck is she?_

“This is not good,” Kat whispered. “This is _really_ not good.”

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Surrender your personal effects for inspection!” a voice boomed from behind them. “We shall _not_ ask again.”

Ava took a deep breath, pulled off her goggles and slowly turned to face the samurai.


	3. Bast

Bast might have been fraught with its own dangers, but at least it wasn’t as dusty and exposed as the desert had been. As the group took a short break in the shade of a rocky outcrop, Rei tipped sand out of her boots for what she hoped would be the last time. Here, the sand was not sand so much as arid dirt, and the ground was a lot firmer underfoot. A few of the barefoot slaves were complaining about this in hushed voices.

“You doing OK?” Bland said.

“Yeah.” Rei’s arm still stung from the skimmer’s attack, but there wasn’t a lot she could do about it. “Just… fingers crossed we don’t run into any samurai. They still patrol these parts, right?”

“Not just samurai,” Lekko said with a scowl. “Damn Okranites too.”

Rei remembered how the Okranites had brought the city of Bast to ruin in a single day, enslaving all survivors. They’d burned the noble in charge alive, by all accounts. She wasn’t sure if that was just anti-Holy Nation propaganda, but it sounded like the sort of thing the Okranites would do.

“We’d better get moving,” she said. “We should be able to get to Bast before sundown. I don’t want us caught out in the darkness.”

“Not a bad plan,” Lekko said grudgingly.

They set off again, scrambling up rocky hills and keeping one eye open for signs of trouble. At one point a swarm of insects flew straight into their faces. Rei waved them away, but they kept returning. Behind her, Lekko was grumbling. “I think I just swallowed a damn bug.”

“Why are there so many?” Rei said, but her question was answered almost as soon as she’d asked it. A sickly, cloying smell had hit her senses, and as she looked over the side of the hill they were on, she saw a number of bodies lying on the slope. A lone, skinny-looking wild bonedog was gnawing on one of the rotting corpses. Rei scooped up Scrap, wincing a little at his weight, and hoped that the wild dog was more interested in its meal than in attacking them.

“Probably a fight between the paladins and the samurai. Looks like the samurai won.” Lekko spat on the floor. “Not that I have any sympathy for these paladins, either.”

A couple of the slaves went to loot the bodies, but Rei held up a hand. “Leave them. We don’t have space to carry much else. Let’s go before that dog decides we’re a threat to its meal.”

The bonedog ignored them as they hurried past. There was still no sign of any paladins or samurai, although they did pass what appeared to be an abandoned camp a mile or two later. A few empty cans of grog lay scattered about the place, together with the remnants of a fire-pit.

“People were here,” Rei said. “And quite a lot of them.”

“Could it be the dead Okranites we found earlier?” Jared asked.

Lekko took a stick and poked at the embers, then tentatively touched them with her finger. “No. The ashes are still warm, and the Okranites have been dead for at least a few days. There’ll be more than one patrol in this area. We’d better be careful.”

As Lekko straightened up, Rei caught sight of a mark on her neck. She stared at it. It took the form of a circle with a square inside it, like a catan credit. Rei was pretty sure she’d seen it before. The mark of the Traders Guild, perhaps? Not all slavers branded their slaves; Lord Haga hadn’t. Rei had been glad to have escaped _that_ particular fate.

“What are you staring at?” Lekko snapped.

“Nothing.”

They moved on in silence, though Rei noticed Lekko rubbing at the back of her neck. It was an uneasy feeling, walking among the hills. Rei had the sense that they were being watched.

With several fresh injuries, the pace of the group was slowed even further. Rei tried not to think about how all of this could have been avoided if she had just listened to Lekko. Lekko was _definitely_ thinking it, because every so often she would shoot Rei an irritated look. The other slaves hadn’t said so in as many words, but Rei knew they blamed her for what had happened.

_I’m not making many friends here._

“You think you’ll be OK to use that axe?” Bland said.

“I hope so.” The group had an assorted selection of weapons, mostly stolen from the slavers, but that didn’t mean they knew how to use them. Rei hoped they wouldn’t be relying on her sword in the same way they seemed to be relying on her leadership.

To Rei’s relief, their journey continued without any need for weapons – not that she fancied their chances against most of the things they were likely to encounter. Scrap gambolled ahead of the group, but seemed to know better than to run too far. He was far better trained than he’d been when Rei had first got him, and a gesture from her was all it took to send him trotting back to her side.

“I think we’re here,” she said finally, as they reached a set of broken town gates.

The assembled slaves stopped and looked through the gates at the ruined town. Bast had been built to take advantage of the cliffs, which were natural town defences, and although there were normal walls as well, they had been left to crumble. The gate was unguarded. Scrap sniffed around it, cocked his leg, then sniffed some more.

“How long has this place been abandoned?” Bland said.

“Years,” Rei replied.

As they entered the ruined town, it became clear that Bast had seen inhabitants in the time since its downfall. Empty grog cans were scattered about the place, and whilst many of the buildings’ roofs had collapsed in on themselves, a couple of storm-houses were mostly intact.

“So people still live here,” Bland remarked.

“Squatters,” said Lekko.

“Reckon they’ll be friendly?”

Lekko did not reply.

Rei inspected the ruins of the nearest building. A cactus had grown in the dirt under the steps and had pushed its way between the metal slats. Rei edged around it and found herself standing in a collapsed room surrounded by fallen beams and chunks of masonry. The place had been picked completely clean. She returned to the others. “Let’s try one of the houses and hope for the best. Don’t draw your weapons unless whoever’s inside proves to be hostile.”

“I really hope none of the patrols have set up camp here,” Lekko muttered.

The first of the storm-houses was mostly empty, but the second was occupied. The three men who had been sitting inside jumped to their feet at the sight of the newcomers. “Who are you?” one of them demanded. “What do you want?”

“Easy,” Rei said. “We’re just some hungry drifters, we don’t want trouble…”

“Drifters my arse,” snorted the man who’d spoken. “A bunch of escaped slaves, more like.” He moved to block the doorway before any more of Rei’s group could enter, pushing his face into Rei’s. His breath smelled oddly curdled. Rei tried not to recoil. “This is _our_ house.”

“OK, OK.” Rei raised her hands and backed away down the steps. “We won’t bother you. We’ll be on our way as soon as we’ve rested.”

“You’d better be.”

“Not friendly,” Rei said in a hushed voice as the man shut the door on their faces. “Come on, let’s go back to the other house.”

There was space in the storm-house for fourteen people and a bonedog, but in the confines of the four walls it became apparent that none of them had had a chance to wash in days – possibly months or years in the case of some of the slaves. Scrap seemed unfazed. He curled up on Rei’s lap and watched the door with baleful eyes.

“How are our wounded?” Rei said.

The Scorchlander they’d dragged unconscious from the slave camp had now awoken, though he hadn’t said anything to anyone. Aside from him, there were the two slaves who’d fallen victim to the skimmers. They were nursing their injuries with pained expressions on their faces, but the wounds were more superficial than Rei had first thought. Many of the other slaves had been wounded in the battle for the stone camp and were still sporting bandages – Lekko and Bland included. In fact, the only one of their number who seemed to be entirely unharmed was Mag, the old woman who had stayed out of the way of the fighting.

“We’ll live,” Lekko said.

“Can I pet your dog?” said one of the Hivers.

“Hmm. Go on then. But don’t blame me if he snaps at you.”

To Rei’s surprise, Scrap seemed to enjoy the attention. When the Hiver stopped stroking him he got up, yawned and trotted over to the slave. _Betrayal_ , Rei thought. _He doesn’t have any treats for you._

“I remember the days of Bast,” Mag said from beside Rei.

“You do?”

“It was a wonderful place. The town grew rich from trading, and it prospered. And then one day, it all came crashing down to ruin.”

“A shame,” Rei said distantly, thinking of all the slaves Bast had probably traded.

“Oh, yes. And as for what happened to the young lord… it’s terrible… those Okranites…”

“ _Terrible_?” Lekko cut in. “I’m sorry, are we both talking about the same nobility? Those power-hungry pricks _enslaved_ you, so why do you have all this sympathy for someone who was as bad as all the rest of them?”

“Lekko…” Bland said exhaustedly.

“ _No_. I want to hear her justification for this.”

“So much anger,” Mag said, smiling her gap-toothed smile and gazing fondly into the middle distance. “Your enslavement was not the fault of the nobles. I myself was sold by my son. The nobles simply exist to keep order.”

“ _Keep order_?” shouted Spade. “Lord Haga was a fucking bastard!”

“Yeah!” Jared snapped.

Lekko was glaring at Mag. “My enslavement was _absolutely_ the fault of the nobles.”

“Slavery is a necessary evil in this world, my dear. I don’t blame my son, not at all…”

“I can’t believe you,” Lekko muttered. She stood up, dusting down her rags, and stepped over people until she reached the doorway. “I’m going for some fresh air. And a piss.” The door slammed behind her.

“ _Really_?” Rei said to Mag.

“Oh yes, really… now, anyone for ghost stories? I believe I’ve heard a few about this place…”

 _She’s mad with age_ , Rei told herself, trying to quell her anger. Aloud she said, “Sure.”

They sat in a huddle in the darkness, listening to Mag’s stories. Rei wished they had a working light, but she had to admit it lent a certain creepy factor to what Mag was saying. Scrap was evidently asleep, because his occasional snores made them all jump.

“And thus it was that the first samurai patrol that found Bast after its destruction went into the ruined town, where they could hear the child weeping, but of the child there was no sign. They searched high and low, certain that there was a survivor, but found nothing. So they decided to set up camp in this forsaken place, and for a time they put all thoughts of the child they had heard from their minds. They drank sake, to forget their losses and their woes, and as they watched the sparks of their campfire disappear into the sky like dying flies, they became aware of the eyes watching them from the shadows… and the weeping, the weeping…”

Rei leant back against the wall, stifling a yawn and trying not to think about the path that lay ahead. What would they do once they reached World’s End, assuming they survived the journey? Would they go their own separate ways? If they did, was it worth Rei trying to get to the Hub and regroup with Kat, Ava and Ruka? Or should she stay and try and persuade the group to stick together? How much money did they actually have, and how long was it going to last?

“… And some still say that on nights like this one, you can hear the crying of the child, and the agonised screams of the young lord as his flesh melts off his bones for all eternity…”

“Shh!” Rei said suddenly. “I think I heard something.”

“It’s the young lord,” someone said teasingly.

“No! Be quiet and take this seriously. Just because we’re indoors doesn’t mean we’re safe.” Rei got to her feet, stumbling a little in the dark. There was some dim moonlight coming in through the windows, but it wasn’t enough to see by. A sudden realisation occurred to her. “Lekko hasn’t returned.”

Behind her, Bland cursed. “We’d better check on her.”

The two of them hurried out of the storm-house, Bland gripping a stolen slaver’s club tightly in his hands, Rei feeling the reassuring weight of the fragment axe strapped to her back. “Lekko?”

“Quiet,” Bland whispered. “I can hear voices.”

They crept forward, keeping to the shadows. The voices grew more distinct as they approached, and Rei recognised the gruff tones of the vagrant who’d shut the door in their face earlier. She still couldn’t quite make out what he was saying, but it sounded threatening. Bland readied his club.

“Maybe your friends will give us food in exchange for your worthless life. And if not… maybe we’ll get a nice reward for turning you in to a samurai patrol.”

“Try not to kill her,” another voice said, “she’s worth nothing to us dead.”

Rei peered around the side of the nearest building. The three vagrants were almost close enough to touch. The biggest of them had his arm wrapped around Lekko’s throat, crushing her windpipe as she clawed ineffectually at his skin in an attempt to free herself.

“What do we do?” Bland muttered out of the corner of his mouth.

 _He’s looking to me for help_ , Rei realised. _Even after what happened in the desert, h_ _e still sees me as the leader._

“I’ll distract them,” she whispered back. “You attack.”

“Are you sure?”

“Guys! I think I heard something,” one of the vagrants said.

Rei stepped out of the shadows. “Hands off our friend.”

The vagrants, who had clearly not been expecting an enemy at such close range, scrambled for their weapons. The man who’d been holding Lekko squeezed his arm tighter around her throat, using her as a human shield.

“Put her down,” Rei said. “Like I say, we’re not after trouble, and I’m sure you’ll agree that we all just want to live to see the next…”

One of the vagrants swung his club at Rei’s head. She ducked just in time. Bland darted out of the shadows, his own club aimed at the vagrant who had just attacked Rei.

“I’ll kill her!” snarled the man holding Lekko.

Rei reached for her fragment axe, but found herself grabbed before she could pull it from its scabbard. She kicked the man in the shins, ran across to the vagrant who had Lekko, and punched him in the face.

Momentarily surprised, the man released his grip slightly. Lekko gasped for air, recovering just enough to dig her elbow into his side. With only one arm to defend himself, the man found himself unable to fend off Rei’s blows. Eventually he let go of Lekko with a howl. Rei grabbed the slave’s arm and pulled her away.

“There are more of us than there are of you,” she yelled. “Drop your weapons and let’s talk about this…”

She wasn’t sure what happened in the seconds that followed, but then she was on the ground, her head ringing where an iron club had smacked into her skull. She hissed in pain and tried to stand up, but the fighting had closed in and weapons clashed above her. There seemed to be a lot more people involved in this fight than there had been originally, and it occurred to her that some of the slaves in the storm-house must have heard the commotion and hurried to investigate. She crawled away from the immediate range of the fighting, hoping that the vagrants were too occupied to attack her while she was down. As she tried to stand up and failed, a hand grabbed hers and pulled her to her feet.

“You OK?” said Lekko.

“Got bashed in the head, but other than that I’m fine. You?”

“Yeah, think so.”

The fight was almost over. The slaves had swarmed the three squatters, forcing them into the dirt at sword-point. Bland was removing their weapons as they watched. Finally Lekko said, “I can take a look at your head if you want. I know some first aid.”

“Thanks, but I think it’ll be OK. I have an exceptionally hard skull.”

“Well, anyway.” Even in the darkness, Lekko looked awkward. “Thank you. And I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have wandered off.” She coughed. “Urgh, my voice is still fucked. What’re you gonna do with those guys?”

Rei went up to the vagrants, all of whom were conscious, but under guard. She crouched in the dirt beside them. “You were planning to hold our friend to ransom.”

“For _food_ ,” spat the biggest. “We’re _hungry_.”

“Maybe we’d have shared if you’d asked nicely.”

“Would we?” Bland said.

Rei ignored him. “Taking advantage of a group of wounded slaves… you make me sick.” She unsheathed her fragment axe. Bland winced.

“Are you sure you want to do this, Rei?”

“Maybe you should listen to him, _Rei_ ,” one of the other vagrants said.

“Don’t get involved,” Rei told Bland.

“I’m not getting involved. It’s your call as leader. Just think about what you’re doing. These guys are unarmed.”

Rei paused, her fragment axe hovering over the large man’s heart. How many people had she killed now, in cold blood? Was it three? A fourth would be so easy… and a fifth and a sixth as well. They were lowlifes. They didn’t deserve to live when so many good people were dying.

 _Good people, does that include you?_ Lord Haga taunted. His head was now little more than a few strips of putrid flesh clinging to a skull. _Go on, show everyone how good of a person you are._

The man glared at her defiantly. “Go on then,” he said, but his voice wobbled slightly.

Rei swore and re-sheathed her axe. “Do what you want with them,” she said to Bland. As she walked away she half-expected to hear the sounds of death behind her, but there were none. _Am I the only person who would have killed them?_

She spent most of the night awake, listening to the snores of her fellow escaped slaves. When morning arrived, Bland was the first to find her, sitting on the steps of the storm-house as the sun rose over the ruins. “Have you slept?”

“Not really,” Rei admitted.

He sat down beside her. “Have you eaten?”

“No.”

“You should come back inside. People are starting to wake up. We’ll need all the strength we can get for the walk to World’s End.”

Rei’s stomach was growling. “I know.” She picked up a small stone and threw it as far as she could. “What would you have done?”

“What do you mean?”

“If you’d been in my position yesterday. Having a chance to kill those thugs.”

“Honestly? I don’t know. I’m glad it wasn’t my call to make.”

“You know, killing a disarmed opponent might be seen as dishonourable among the Shek.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You know, unless they were experts in unarmed combat or something. But to kill someone who’s helpless… it’s sort of against our code. Let people die with a sword in their hand, is how we’re supposed to do it, because where’s the glory in defeating an already defeated enemy?” She sighed. “It’s made me realise there’s no honour left in me anymore.”

“I know this isn’t much coming from a mere flatskin, but… you’re leading people to freedom. You’re defending us against threats, and you know the bastards could easily have killed Lekko. I don’t blame you for wanting to execute them for it.”

“Maybe.”

As she turned to go back inside, Rei glanced across the town to where the squatters’ house lay tucked away between the cliffs. The men had been tied up in there, stripped of their weapons, and left to their fate. Maybe they’d get free, maybe they wouldn’t, but that _maybe_ was enough to ease Rei’s conscience. They had a chance at survival… so long as they kept trying to escape.

 _Well, now that problem’s sorted out,_ she thought as she tucked into a ration pack, _I suppose we’ve now got to think about how we’re going to get to World’s End._

 

* * *

 

“You,” the samurai snapped at Ava, who was staring boldly back at him. “Hand over your gear for inspection.”

Ava pulled off her backpack. “You know, I have some things in here that are kind of personal. Couldn’t we settle this in a manner that’s more amenable to both of us?”

“Oh, _I_ see.” There was a pause. Kat froze; was the samurai _winking_? “Five thousand cats and I’ll let this slide.”

“Hey Polly,” Ava said, “get some money for this nice gentleman, would you?”

It took Kat a moment to process what Ava was doing. _Of course_. There was a good chance Lady Sanda would know their names and have given them to the samurai. She reached into Ava’s bag and pulled out a couple of strings of cats. “Here you go, sir,” she said with forced brightness.

The samurai counted out the coins, slipped one string into his pocket and handed the other strings to his companions. Most of the samurai were still some distance behind, and Kat could see why he’d wanted to process the transaction quickly; it meant less bribe money to be shared. “Smart choice. Hey, wasn’t there a third person with you?”

“No,” Kat said before Ava could speak. She could only hope her quick answer hadn’t sounded suspicious. “We passed by some random drifter just now, maybe that’s who you saw.”

“Hmm.” The samurai’s eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t press it. Kat fervently hoped that wherever Ruka was, she had not been caught, and had not told the samurai a different story. “Well, now I’ve helped _you_ out, maybe you can do something in return for me.”

He handed Kat a small pile of papers. “We’re looking for four people travelling together. Two Shek, a Scorchlander, some Greenlander woman, and maybe some escaped slaves with them as well. Wanted for crimes against the United Cities. If you see ’em, let us know.” With that, he and his companions walked away.

“You let them think we were _smugglers_?” Kat whispered to Ava as soon as they were out of earshot.

“Because we looked really suspicious when we ran off, and because you can buy your way out of that one. If you’re a terrorist with a bounty of…” Ava put her goggles back on, took the papers from Kat, and flicked through them. Her voice rose. “ _Thirty thousand cats_?”

“Are those bounty posters? Let me see!”

Looking at her own bounty poster gave Kat chills. The likeness was not particularly good, but she didn’t need to read the name on the poster to know it was of her. “Wanted for crimes of murder and terrorism,” she read aloud. “Hey, I’m not a murderer! I’ve never killed _anyone_.”

“Kat,” Ava said. “Lord Haga is dead, along with anyone who was left in that slave camp. We’re going to be considered conspirators at this point, no matter who actually delivered the blow that took his head off.” She crumpled the posters in her fist. “At least we have one advantage over the people out looking for us.”

“Which is?”

“They’re expecting us all to be travelling together. Come on, we’d better find Ruka.”

They clambered up the side of one of the sand dunes so they could keep an eye out for both Ruka and the samurai. As they scanned the area, Kat said, “ _Polly_?”

“It was the first name I could think of, all right?”

But Kat’s eyes were gleaming. “You need a new name as well. I think you should go with… uh… Sticky.”

“What the _fuck_ kind of a name is Sticky?”

“It’s a real name,” Kat said. “I knew someone back in the swamps who was called that.”

“Right…”

“Actually, I think it was short for Sticky Fingers. She was the best fence in Shark.”

“I don’t think…”

“Not that she had any fingers left when the Stone Rats were done with her.”

“Look, I don’t think this is the time to be talking about this. Ruka’s out there somewhere and she might be in trouble.”

“I once knew someone called Plank as well. That’d be a good name for Ruka. Coz you know, she likes heavy weapons.”

“You can be the one to suggest that to her,” Ava said tightly, “because I wouldn’t dare.”

They spotted Ruka on the sands below and made their way down to her. As they approached Ruka spread her hands in a what-happened-to-you gesture. “You guys ran straight into the path of the samurai. I thought you were toast.”

“Believe me, so did I,” Kat said. “They didn’t realise who we were, they just asked to see our bags. Ava came up with a sort of cover story for us running off and they bought it.”

“Oh, wow. Well done, Ava.”

“Yeah, well,” Ava said, looking embarrassed, “I took my goggles off so they couldn’t identify me as easily. Which meant I couldn’t see properly either. It’s easier to lie when you can’t see the other person’s face.”

“By the way,” Kat burst out, shoving the bounty posters at Ruka, “you may want to take a look at these.”

“What are… oh.” Ruka flicked through them. “These are pictures of us.”

“Look at what it says on mine! _Murder_ and _terrorism_.”

“Uh, I’ll take your word for it.” Ruka blushed.

“Wait,” said Kat, “you can’t read?”

“Guys, we have giant bounties on our heads,” Ava interjected. “Let’s get moving.”

“I didn’t even do any terrorism,” Kat said sulkily, “so by rights my bounty should _not_ be as big as…”

Ava grabbed Kat by the shirt, pulling her to a stop. “Do you think this is a _game_ , Kat?” she hissed.

“N-no…”

“Because there is nothing fun about having a bounty on your head, and it’s not something to make jokes about. Do you know what they’ll do to us if they catch us? Here’s a hint: we’re not going to get locked up in some police station somewhere and sent to some slave mines we can then escape from. No. We’re going to be locked away in the most notorious prison in the United Cities, in the _world_ even, locked up with a bunch of hardened criminals, and we’re probably going to end up being tortured for Rei’s location. Or for fun, given that we’ll be _completely_ at the mercy of the nobles. Do you want that? Do you think there’s anything remotely _fun_ or _exciting_ about that outcome?” She paused, breathing heavily. “Listen here, Kat. Ruka and I have sacrificed a _lot_ to help you and Rei out. We do _not_ need to listen to you making wisecracks and coming up with stupid codenames like this is a fun little adventure story your grandmother told you. So grow up and start acting like an adult, because Emperor Tengu is sure as _hell_ going to treat you like one if he captures you.”

“Ava,” Ruka said quietly as Kat trembled in Ava’s grip. “You’ve said your piece. Let go of her.”

Ava looked as though she was about to argue, but she released her grip on Kat’s shirt. Without another word she turned and stalked away. Kat stared at her as she left.

“Come on,” Ruka said to Kat.

Still shaking, Kat followed the others across the sand dunes. The only time any of them spoke for the rest of the afternoon was to warn of skimmers and other threats they had spotted; aside from that, the walk was spent in silence.

Ava’s mood seemed to improve as the day drew to a close. They had left most of the sand dunes behind them now, and were fast approaching a long, rocky plateau surrounded by swirling clouds of dust. “Well,” she said to Kat in a softer voice than before, “looks like your navigation was spot on. Good job.”

“Are we going to spend the night in there?” Kat said doubtfully. She’d been through the Spine Canyon once, with Longstoat. It had not been a pleasant experience. “We don’t have any shelter.”

“There’ll be rocks and stuff that we can use for cover,” Ava pointed out. “Also I bet you they’ll be sending patrols out to all the border regions to intercept us, so we don’t want to get caught out in the open.”

“Well then.” Ruka rewrapped the cloth over her mouth and nose. “Better cover your faces, coz this is going to get dusty.”

Even with a protective layer between her face and the swirling sand, Kat still felt her lungs burning as they entered the Spine Canyon. She kept a tight grip on Ruka’s arm, not wanting to get separated in the sandstorm. The wind howled around them and the dim light from the Hiver lantern barely pierced the gloom.

“Keep an eye out,” Ruka said. “There are skimmers and bonedogs lurking in these winds.”

Kat couldn’t imagine a skimmer’s spindly legs being able to withstand the wind, but she knew Ruka was right. She’d certainly seen bonedogs when she and Longstoat had traversed these plateaus half a year ago.

“Speaking of skimmers and bonedogs,” Ava said. “Kat?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think you could outrun them? If you had to?”

Kat thought about it. “I couldn’t back when me and Rei escaped. But now… maybe? I don’t know, I like to think I’m fairly fast, but I don’t know how much the terrain would slow me down.”

“OK. Would you please promise me something?”

“No,” Kat said at once. “If you’re gonna say what I think you’re gonna say, forget it.”

“Kat, please. I’m sure Ruka would back me up on this. If we get caught by something unsavoury and things are looking bad, and one of us tells you to run, please run. Don’t stop to try and help us, just leg it out of there as fast as you can.”

“Ruka’s not going to…” Kat stopped at the expression on Ruka’s face. Even in the swirly dust, it was unmistakable. “Oh, come on. I can’t promise that. You  _know_  I can’t promise that.”

“Kat, you’re like, seventeen. If I die, or get caught…”

“Don’t say that.”

“... I’m not taking a teenager down with me.”

They stopped walking. Ava had seen Kat was trembling. “Look,” she said more gently. “You have a chance here. A chance to  _do_ something,  _be_  someone. Please don’t throw it away. If you’re going to listen to even  _one_  thing I say, please, please make it this.”

Kat didn’t answer.

“Please promise me.”

Kat’s lip wobbled. “Don’t make me…”

“Kat.”

“All right, I promise!” She glared at Ava. “But that’s not gonna happen.”

“Let’s hope not. Hey, don’t cry.”

“I’m not crying. It’s just the dust.”

“Yeah,” Ruka said, “about that. Can we try and find some shelter?”

As it turned out, Ava’s optimism was poorly founded, and the Canyon offered surprisingly few good places for shelter. After some time of looking, they alighted upon a small overhang in the side of a cliff. The rock was too low for Ruka to be able to sit up fully, and it was uncomfortable for Ava, but Kat found she had enough space. The wind blew dust past them, channelled by the rocky outcrops on either side of the path. The temperature may have been dropping, but at least they were out of the worst of the sand. Better yet, anyone passing by on the path in the dark would be unlikely to see them. It certainly wasn’t safe, especially not from bonedogs and their sense of smell, but it was the best they were going to get.

“So now we’re back on track,” Ava said, “we should be able to reach Okran’s Shield by the end of tomorrow.” She didn’t sound cheery at the prospect.

“Well, that should be fun,” Ruka said.

“Isn’t that how you got to the desert in the first place?” Kat asked, raising her voice a little to be heard over the wind. “Up north through Holy Nation lands and then east? That’s the way I went.”

“Yeah, we kind of took a different route last time,” Ruka said. “Went east and _then_ north. And let me tell you, that’s not a route either of us ever want to repeat. Place was crawling with gutters and fucking… light beams or some shit. Lucky we listened to that guy in the bar and only crossed those parts after dark, but _urgh_ , gutters.”

“What _are_ gutters exactly? I’ve never actually met one.”

Ava laughed grimly. “Proof of Narko’s twisted sense of humour. Big nasty things with necks up to _here_ and these horrid beaks.”

“Butt ugly,” Ruka added.

“And they have _legs_ on them, they could outrun even Hivers.”

“Wait, do you mean beak things?” asked Kat. “They sound like beak things.”

“Is that the vernacular?” Ava said. “Well, I guess it’s descriptive…”

“Did you run into any?”

“Oh yes,” Ruka replied. “On a totally unrelated note, did you know that a gutter’s neck is the thinnest part of its body? It attacks with its head like…” She made a sudden stabbing gesture with her hand. “Gives you a small window of opportunity, if you’re in the right place.”

“You cut a gutter’s _head_ off?”

“Yeah… I wouldn’t advise hanging around after you’ve done that, as we learnt. If a gutter goes down, all its friends seem to know about it.”

“The point is,” Ava said, “we can’t go south through more United Cities territory and pray we somehow get past the death lasers and the gutters. Not with Ruka’s injuries, my leg and your… inexperience? It’d be suicide. I mean… this might also be suicide, but at least we only have to worry about _people_.”

“It’s not too late to go to World’s End instead.” Kat had been pondering this ever since they’d gotten lost the previous day. “We could catch up with Rei’s group and…”

But Ava was shaking her head. “No. We need to stay apart from them for their safety as well as ours. Besides, that area is full of samurai and paladins. Personally, I think our chances are better against the paladins, especially if they think you’re a boy.”

An unwilling sob rose up inside Kat. She tried to suppress it, but it had been suppressed for too long, and the sob was followed by another, and another. She huddled against the dusty rock, her face buried in her knees and her shoulders shaking.

“That’s a good thing,” Ava said encouragingly. “I can tell you what to say to them if they stop and ask us questions.”

“I don’t care about looking like a boy.”

“Then…”

“I care about Rei! She could be in danger! What if they never even got as far as Bast? What if…”

Ava hesitated with her hand hovering over Kat’s shoulder. “Oh, Kat. I’m sure she’ll be fine.”

Kat shrank back from the hand as if it had bitten her. “Spare me the empty words. You think I don’t _know_ that we’re all in a fuck-ton of danger? You think you’re the only one who’s had to sacrifice something?”

“Kat, I – ”

“Because I’m starting to think I should have gone with Rei.”

There was a silence. Ava slowly withdrew her hand. “Maybe you should have done,” she said quietly.

“Ava,” Ruka said.

“No, she’s right. Maybe Rei would be more tolerant of her _childishness_.”

“Ava!”

Ava stopped. Kat wiped her streaming eyes on the hem of her shirt, but the grit clinging to the fabric worsened her tears. “I’m only saying the truth.”

“Do you seriously not get it, Ava? Kat’s not the one being childish here. The fact she’s just said that to you, and you still think she’s treating this like a joke? She’s stressed out of her fucking mind just like the rest of us. The only difference is, she’s not acting like she’s got a stick up her arse.”

“It’s called being an adult,” Ava snapped.

“It’s called being a bitch,” Ruka shot back. “I know you think I’m stupid, but…”

“Hold up one second,” Ava said quietly. “I have _never_ said that. _Ever_.”

“Oh yeah? How many times have you called me an idiot?”

“Ruka…”

“And while we’re at it, is there anything else you think I am? A brute? A beast? A darkened one?”

Kat stared at Ruka through her tears. “Ruka, you know she doesn’t think that.”

“I’m waiting for her to answer,” Ruka said, glowering at Ava.

Kat couldn’t quite believe she wasn’t dreaming. “Ruka, this is the stress talking.”

“Shut up!”

Ruka’s words were like a slap in the face. Kat fell silent, staring at them both.

“I don’t understand how you can think this after more than a year of us being friends,” Ava said tremulously. “After everything we’ve been through.”

“Is a year enough to undo whatever your damn religion has taught you about my people?”

Kat winced.

“Do you really think so little of me?” Ava said.

“I don’t know what I think anymore.”

“Then this conversation’s over.”

Ava turned away, her face crumpling. She unrolled her sleeping bag, placing it at the far end of the overhang, and climbed inside. “I’m going to bed. One of you can take first watch.”

“I’ll do it,” said Kat.

Normally Kat found keeping watch a lonely task, but right now the silence was a blessing. She sat huddled in her sleeping bag for warmth, the flickering Hiver lantern casting eerie shadows on the rock, and waited for signs of danger. With luck, Rei and the escaped slaves were most of the way to World’s End by now. If they could get there, they’d be safe; the city was run by the Tech Hunters, who operated independently of any major faction. The United Cities wouldn’t dare lead a full assault in those mountains. All Kat could do was hope they didn’t catch up with Rei before then.

It took Kat a while to realise she was being watched. Through the long shadows cast by the lantern, she could just make out a pair of dark eyes regarding her quietly. She lifted the lantern a little and let the light fall on Ruka, who was lying facing her with her chin propped on her arms.

“Didn’t realise you were awake.”

“Couldn’t sleep.” Ruka sat up, banging her head on the overhang. “Ow, fuck. Forgot we had a ceiling for a moment there.”

Kat did not reply. Ruka eased her legs around so she was in a more comfortable position. “Well, you were right about us being a mess.”

“Why did you pick that fight?” Kat said before she could stop herself. “You guys are _friends_.”

Ruka shrugged. “You know when you have a nagging voice inside your head that won’t shut up?”

“I guess.”

“Doesn’t matter how drunk I get,” Ruka said tonelessly. “I can’t drown it out anymore.”

“Oh.”

“You know what I like about you, Kat? You’re resilient. A lot more so than I am.”

“I’m really not.”

“When you got knocked down, you sprang back up. When I got to my feet again, I was crippled.” She searched around for a moment. “Damn it, can’t find the sake. Oh well, it’s probably nearly gone by now.”

“I don’t think you’re crippled.”

“Kat,” Ruka said with a snort. “You’re talking to a woman who hasn’t been properly sober in over a year.”

Kat looked at her. She’d noticed, of course, but she’d never realised the full extent to how much her friend had been suffering. Now she thought about it, Ruka looked utterly worn down. The skin around her eyes was puffy and slightly discoloured, and her face was more lined than it should have been for her age. Kat had seen a similar look on Rei, particularly in the weeks immediately following their rescue.

“What happened a year ago made me realise,” Ruka said heavily. “You can lose everything in an instant. Family, friends, any semblance of a stable life. And now, with the situation we’re in, it’s starting to feel a lot like before.”

“I’m sorry.”

“What for?”

“Me and Rei, we…”

“No. Don’t blame yourself for what’s happened. Even if we hadn’t helped you guys, Lady Sanda might still have wanted a doctor, it would have panned out much the same way. We’d still have had to leave, assuming I’d even have been able to cope on my own without Ava there, assuming I didn’t get wounded and you know, nearly die as a result. We’d probably be in a similar situation… maybe with less of a bounty on our heads, I don’t know.” She smiled sadly at Kat. “Don’t let anything Ava’s said get to you.”

“I’ll try not to.”

“Just… hang in there, yeah? We’ll get to the Hub, we’ll relax, we’ll work out a plan from there. Things’ll be OK.”

Kat wanted so desperately to believe her.


	4. Skeleton

“I hate the Skimsands,” Ceras grumbled.

“Yes, I think we established that the first time you said it,” Marisa said.

They’d been walking most of the night, trying to reach the desert’s edge. Now it was early morning, and they were almost there. Okran’s Shield was visible as a small dot in the distance, and Ceras could just make out the glint of armour as figures patrolled the immediate area in front of it. “Urgh, and I hate paladins too.”

“Don’t we all,” muttered Kuto.

“They won’t attack us, right?” Marisa said. “I mean, we aren’t dressed like samurai. They don’t care enough to go assaulting travellers.”

“I’m keeping away,” Ceras said. “Them Okranites, they’re a bunch of self-righteous twats.”

“Well, they’re going to be hard to avoid,” Marisa pointed out. “They patrol all across the Skimsands, not just Okran’s Shield. So if they say anything, or insult us, let’s _not_ rise to the bait, OK?”

“What if they attack us? Can I take their heads off?” Kuto said hopefully.

“No! We leg it in the opposite direction.”

“You’re no fun, flatskin.”

“If you want something to fight,” Ceras said, “go fight that skimmer over there.”

“ _No_!” Marisa grabbed Kuto’s arm before he could charge headlong into battle. “We can’t afford to be injured. We have one job, which is to try and intercept these outlaws as they pass through. There are four of them, and a damn bonedog. Might be some slaves in the mix too. The point is, they have _numbers_. We need everyone fighting fit.”

“I am always fighting fit. Unhand me, flatskin.”

“Urgh,” Marisa said as Kuto pushed her away. “I can’t believe Lady Sanda sent me off with _you_ two.”

“I will take this fanged antlion down and bring back its beak as a trophy.” And with that, Kuto unsheathed his sabre and ran at the skimmer with a loud battle cry. “For blood and glory!”

“Is he always like this?” Marisa said disbelievingly.

“He’s not had any action in a _really_ long time,” Ceras replied.

“Ew. I didn’t need to know that.”

“I was referring to fighting,” Ceras said as they hurried to help Kuto. “But, that too.”

“Stay back, helpless flatskins!” Kuto shouted at their approach. “The might of a Shek warrior is no match for – ”

The skimmer struck out, knocking the Shek off his feet. Marisa and Ceras unsheathed their _nodachis_ and sprang forward. As the skimmer went for Kuto, the other two spread out so it was surrounded.

“The legs, go for the legs!” Marisa shouted.

The skimmer skittered as Ceras took out its back leg. A strong blow from Marisa’s _nodachi_ was enough to sever its other back leg, and the insect crumpled. With an expression of distaste on her face, Marisa straddled the prone form and drove her _nodachi_ into its thorax. “These things give me the creeps.”

They continued on their way, accompanied by Kuto’s many insistences that he’d had the situation under control. Marisa was muttering to herself, just loudly enough for Ceras to hear. “A drunkard and a fool. We’ll never turn this bounty in.”

“Yeah, yeah, a _charming_ drunkard you mean. Relax, angry girl.”

A second later Ceras found himself at sword-point. “I’m sorry, did you say something?”

“Uh,” Ceras said, staring at the quivering tip of the _nodachi_.

“Choose your words carefully,” Marisa added.

“… No? No, I didn’t say anything. Must have been the wind.”

Marisa re-sheathed her sword. “Well, _the wind_ had better watch its mouth.”

“Right.”

“I would not have accepted that slight,” growled Kuto from behind them.

“We know.”

They set up a vantage point on the sands in front of Okran’s Shield, resting in the meagre shade of a scrubland tree. From here, they had a clear view of what was ahead of them. Okran’s Shield was an outpost in two halves, with a narrow road running down the centre. Given the rockiness of the surrounding area and their proximity to the acidic Deadlands, the outpost was a strategic choice. Any traveller wishing to take a safe route from Holy Nation lands to the United Cities would have to go through the Shield.

It was the perfect spot for an ambush.

“So what do we do now?” said Ceras.

“We wait,” Marisa replied.

They sat in a triangle with their backs to each other, keeping eyes open in three directions. Marisa watched the Shield and its paladins. Ceras and Kuto guarded for skimmers and any suspicious-looking passers-by. At one point someone _did_ pass, and Kuto jumped up, but it was only a Hiver.

“Sit the fuck down,” Marisa snapped, “you’re making _us_ look suspicious.”

“We look suspicious anyway,” Ceras pointed out. “Sitting in the middle of the Skimsands eyeballing the Shield. And we don’t exactly look like we’re having a picnic.”

“A _what_?” Marisa said.

“A picnic. It’s this thing, right, what my wife and I used to do…”

“Yeah, OK, whatever. I don’t need to hear about your personal life. And let me just make this clear,” Marisa added, “I have absolutely _no_ desire to _picnic_ with either you or the Shek. You’re way too old for me.”

“No, no, that ain’t what a picnic is,” Ceras hurried to explain. “See, a _picnic_ is…”

“Save it. Keep watching.”

Ceras gloomily surveyed the area to the north-east, thinking about the growing emptiness in his belly. The rations were all in Marisa’s bag, which was currently resting on her lap. Maybe if she got distracted, she’d leave the bag unattended, and he’d be able to sneak some food…

“Holy Nation patrol incoming,” Marisa said, cutting straight through Ceras’s pleasant reverie of overcooked meat and tasteless foodcubes. “Let’s not give them a cause to antagonise us.”

They stood up at the patrol’s approach. Unlike the squads of the United Cities, the Holy Nation’s patrols were entirely male and Greenlander. The paladins, who were wearing battered-looking armour, were accompanied by a number of orange-robed men wielding cleavers. If memory served, they were known as Holy Chosen. They were weaker than paladins and sentinels, but that didn’t stop them turning up their noses at Ceras, Kuto and Marisa.

“And who might you be?” the paladin leading the squad demanded.

“We’re mercenaries,” Marisa began, but the paladin held up his hand.

“Silence, woman. I’m asking the brother.”

It took Ceras a moment to realise the paladin was referring to him. “Oh. Right. Hi.” He smiled at the paladin. The paladin did not smile back. “Praise be to… uh, Okran.”

“Hm,” said the paladin. “Do you have a copy of the Holy Flame, brother?”

“Um. Thick leather-bound book, the symbol of the sacred flame on the cover? The one that teaches women and Shek are creatures of darkness? The one that contains the pure word of Okran and his teachings?”

“Yes, that’s the one,” the paladin said encouragingly.

“Yeah, sorry, I don’t have one of ’em. Heard it’s useful for all sorts of life situations though. When my aunt got diarrhoea, she – ”

“Praise be to Okran, Lord of Light!” Marisa said quickly. “May the impure races be rebirthed to serve the cause of the light, and the women subdued lest they, uh, tempt the purity of man into the darkness with them…”

“Wait a minute!” one of the Holy Chosen yelled. “Her leg, look at her leg! She’s a Skeleton!”

 _Oh shit_. If the Okranites hated one race above all else, it was the Skeletons. The information took a few moments to filter through Ceras’s sluggish brain, and by the time it had done so, the patrol had drawn swords and attacked.

“Darkened heretics!” the paladin shouted as the blade of his hacker pressed back against Ceras’s sword. Ceras glanced around and saw that Kuto and Marisa were completely swarmed. Kuto was making a good job of fending the Holy Chosen off, swiping left and right with his sabre, but the brunt of the attack was being focused on Marisa, who kept getting hit with their blades.

“I’m not a Skeleton!” she shouted. “I’m human!”

“Your heretical limb tells a different story, Skeleton.” A sentinel’s cleaver went straight for Marisa’s robotic leg. She tried to dodge out of the way, but the prosthetic was still unfamiliar for her and she couldn’t move fast enough. Ceras stared as oil and gearwheels spilled onto the sand. Marisa folded, the knee joint of her leg no longer operational, and the Holy Chosen converged.

“Lady Sanda’s gonna kill us!” Kuto ran forward. Ceras hesitated for only a fraction of a second before doing the same.

Marisa was half-sitting, half-lying on the ground, swinging her _nodachi_ in a vain attempt to block the hackers coming her way. But from her position, fighting two-handed made her swordwork weak, and she was incredibly vulnerable. Swearing, Ceras started hacking through the swarming mass of Holy Chosen, trying to reach her.

“Retreat! Retreat!” a paladin shouted in a panicked voice.

“Hah! Puny flatskins.” Kuto had downed a number of the Holy Chosen and was now advancing on the paladins.

But for once, Ceras had seen something Kuto hadn’t. Skimmers. They were crawling spider-like across the sands towards them, and from the looks of things, they seemed to be moving in a pack. The paladins were barking orders at the Holy Chosen, who had broken formation. “Kuto! Grab Marisa and let’s get out of here!”

Kuto spun around, his sabre in his hands. Ceras desperately hoped he was not about to try and play the hero.

“Kuto!”

Kuto sprinted to Marisa’s side. Ceras held his _nodachi_ out in front of him, ready to defend against anything that came at them, hoping Kuto would have time to re-sheathe his sword and get Marisa. The Holy Nation patrol was taking a defensive stance, their original fight forgotten in the face of this new threat. After some grunting, Kuto hauled Marisa over his shoulder.

“She’s heavy,” he grumbled.

“Hey,” Marisa said, but her protests were half-hearted. It was easy to see why she had no more fight in her. There was a swollen lump on the side of her head and the bits of her that weren’t armoured were covered in cuts and bruises. Blood leaked from the corner of her mouth where she’d been hit in the face. “Can we go? Please?”

In spite of his complaints, Kuto did not seem to have much trouble with Marisa’s weight, and they made reasonably fast progress across the sands. When they were out of sight of the Holy Nation patrol, Kuto set Marisa down with her back against a large rocky outcrop. “Typical flatskins, getting completely fucked up in fights. I thought you were meant to be Lady Sanda’s personal guard.”

“I am… or, was… or something.” Marisa rubbed at her bruises with a wince.

“Surprised nobody ever managed to assassinate her,” was all Kuto had to say.

Marisa ignored him and pulled up her trouser leg to reveal the metal underneath. “Well, shit. That’s not looking good. I can’t bend it either.”

“I think the flatskin’s fancy leg is broken,” Kuto grunted at Ceras.

“Yeah, I kind of noticed that, thanks Kuto.”

Marisa had turned pale. “How am I going to get back to Bark?”

“Hop?” Kuto suggested.

Ceras knelt down to look at the damage. He’d be the first to admit he knew nothing about robotics, but even he could tell the leg would need some serious repairs. He prodded at the gash the sentinel’s hacker had left and immediately regretted it as his finger snagged on a sharp piece of metal. “Ow.”

“I have a repair kit in my bag,” Marisa said, “but I don’t know how to use it.”

“Hey, don’t panic,” Ceras said. “We’ll figure something out.”

“Yeahhhh. Course we will.”

“I know about robotics. Well,” Ceras conceded, “I know what them gear things are for, and I know how spanners work, so I reckon we’re about halfway there.”

“Oh, good grief,” Marisa muttered. “I mean, I guess you can’t make this much worse.”

Ceras opened the repair kit, staring doubtfully at the tools. They didn’t look like any kind of technology he was used to; they were probably as ancient as Marisa’s leg was. “Well, we need to like, stop the oil leakin’ out and stuff. So we need to use this weldy thing.”

Marisa was eyeing the _weldy thing_ with extreme apprehension. “Please be careful with that.”

“Well, you’re allowed to take the leg off, you know.” He paused, waiting, but Marisa did not move. “Really? You think we’re gonna run away with it and leave you here for the skimmers?”

“In a single word? Yes.”

“An insult to my honesty, that is.” Ceras was busy trying to work out which end of the tool was the end that heated. Kuto, meanwhile, had grown bored and wandered off. “Aight. Well, guess we should give it a go.”

Marisa smiled thinly and pulled the box of tools towards her. She made no move to thank Ceras, but he had the feeling she had warmed towards him, just a little. He watched as she selected a hefty-looking spanner and a pair of tweezers from the kit. “Are you sure you’re going to need the spanner for this?”

“No, not for this,” Marisa said, using the tweezers to poke at the exposed wires and cables inside her leg. “It’s just good to have something heavy in range, in case you decide to stop being quite so honest.”

 _Nobles and their guards_ , thought Ceras as they set to work. _It makes no difference in the end. They’re all the bloody same._

 

* * *

 

To Ava’s surprise, the plateaus of the Spine Canyon were narrower than the map suggested. By mid-morning the next day they were almost at the Skimsands, the rocky expanse of skimmer-infested sand that stretched out all the way to Okran’s Shield. The thought of the Skimsands did not fill Ava with much confidence. Aside from the skimmer problem, the Skimsands were far more exposed than the Great Desert region had been; here, the Spine Canyon acted as a windbreak and there were few sand dunes to be found.

They decided to take the higher ground for as much of their journey as was possible. Up on the plateaus and outcrops, the wind was a little calmer and the visibility better. It was here that they stopped for breakfast, on a rocky cliff dotted with trees with thick purple leaves. Ava couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen a tree. The trees and the unusual rock formations reminded her of just how uniform the desert had been. No matter how harsh the Canyon was, it had a certain charm to it.

Kat and Ruka were sitting under one of the trees, talking quietly amongst themselves. Ava hadn’t spoken to either of them since the events of the previous night, nor did she particularly want to. The things Ruka had said were still fresh in her mind. But as Ava finished her rations and dusted herself off, she saw Kat approach out of the corner of her eye.

“Don’t make me have to play peacemaker,” Kat said as she sat down.

“I’m not making you do anything. Don’t fight Ruka’s battles for her.”

“Look, it’s not… We can’t afford to do this. All we’ve been doing for the last few days has been bickering.”

“And making clever comments,” Ava said snidely.

“Right! OK. I’m sorry.” Kat held up her hands. “I’m sorry for making things worse. See? I have apologised, now maybe if _you_ apologise we can all…”

“Give it a rest, Kat. I’m not apologising for taking this damn situation more seriously than everyone else. If that bothers you, feel free to go and hate me alongside Ruka.”

“And now who’s being childish? Ruka really cares about you and you know that.”

There was a silence. “She told you,” Ava said finally.

“Yeah.”

“Right.” Ava fiddled with the map. “So if she cares about me, why did she say what she said?”

“Because she’s scared.”

Ava did not reply.

“Look, I’m not fighting her battles and I’m not fighting yours either. But please, go and talk to each other.”

“No.” Ava’s voice caught. “No… I…”

“Uh, guys?” Ruka called out. “We’ve got company.”

Kat and Ava looked up. Ruka was on her feet, her sword drawn, watching the group of men advance. Ava counted five of them, both Greenlander and Shek, their faces hidden behind masked helmets. For a horrible moment she thought they were manhunters, but the armour and weapons were different. _Bandits_.

“We want whatever’s in your backpacks,” one of them said. He was a large Greenlander man, evidently the leader. “Hand them over.”

Ava pulled out her katana. “Kat, get out of here.”

“No, I – ”

“Kat, you don’t even have a weapon.”

Kat glanced longingly at her backpack, but she’d left it by where Ruka had been sitting. Ava watched as she hurried away, taking cover behind a rock. If things went completely tits-up – which was looking like a real possibility – at least Kat would be unharmed.

The bandits spread out, surrounding Ava. She backed away, bumping into Ruka as she did so. “You’re not taking our stuff.”

“Fine. Have it your way.”

The bandits closed in, and Ava’s mind raced with panic. She gripped the handle of her katana with both hands, feeling the sweat pool under her fingertips. Behind her, Ruka was trembling. The realisation sent a cold dread through Ava’s veins. _She knows she can’t take them on with her injuries_. “Ava, you should have gone with Kat.”

“And leave you?”

“Look, Ava, we should give them what they want.” Ruka’s voice shook with pain and exhaustion. Ava had never heard her talk like that before. “We can’t win, we can’t afford any injuries…”

“We can’t afford to lose our stuff either.”

A cleaver swung at Ava’s chest. She raised her katana to meet the blow, but the force of it knocked her backwards into Ruka. The bandits were closing in around them like a net. She heard a few yells as Ruka’s heavy sword collided with unprotected skin, but they were still outnumbered. The bandit who’d first attacked Ava was right in her face, ready to drive his sword straight through her shirt.

“Hey, assholes!” A stone came flying out of nowhere, hitting the side of the bandit’s helmet and putting a significant dent in it. He stumbled, and without thinking, Ava plunged her rusty katana into the exposed flesh of his belly.

“Nice one!” Kat called, chucking more stones. Of course she hadn’t listened to Ava. Ava was thankful for that.

“Kat, look out!”

Kat’s eyes widened at the sight of the cleaver coming towards her and made a run for it. The bandit leader paused, debating whether or not to chase her, but then he noticed his fallen comrade. He charged at Ava with a bellow, his meaty hand closing around her neck and dragging her from the circle. Ava gasped, struggling for air, as the remaining bandits moved in to fight Ruka.

“That was my brother you killed,” he snarled. Behind the helmet, his face was a mask of rage and grief. “You little bitch.”

“Kat,” Ava choked, but Kat had not seen her. She’d retreated to higher ground and was throwing stones at Ruka’s assailants, but they kept missing their mark.

“Watch it!” Ruka yelled at her, as a pebble bounced off the side of her head.

Ava lashed out at the bandit leader, her katana swiping at his chest. He dropped her with a yelp, droplets of blood running over his skin. But he recovered quickly, driving her backwards with his blade. Ava stumbled, the ground feeling increasingly unstable under her feet. The katana dropped from her fingers. The bandit stopped, the tip of his sword pointed at her face, his eyes gleaming. It was at this moment that Ava realised they were right at the edge of the cliff.

“Maybe killing you with a sword is too good for you,” the bandit leader said.

Ava risked a glance down. She couldn’t see the base of the cliff for the swirling dust, but there had to be at least a twenty-foot drop directly behind her. She looked desperately to Ruka for help, but Ruka was on the floor. As Ava watched, Ruka tried to get up, but one of the bandits kicked her hands out from underneath her. The remaining bandits were donning the abandoned backpacks.

“Ava!” a voice shouted.

Kat, who had at this point seen the danger Ava was in, was sprinting towards them. She was barely halfway there before another bandit tackled her, sending her sprawling to the ground.

“Please,” Ava said as the leader’s sword shook. “Don’t do this. I’m a doctor. I can help him.”

“You should have just given us your stuff like I asked.”

Ava stared at the carnage behind the bandit. One of their attackers – the leader’s brother – was lying on the ground in a pool of his blood, but the rest were all still standing. Ruka was being held at sword-point. Kat’s assailant had her in an armlock. They had lost the fight.

 _Okran_ … Ava tried to formulate a prayer, but the words tripped over themselves in her fear.

“Boss!” one of the bandits called.

The leader drew back his cleaver, but before he could act, the ground began to shake. Ava hadn’t been wrong in thinking the rock was unstable. She tried to make a run for it, but she was too close to the edge of the cliff. Instead she lunged forwards, feeling the ground crumble away beneath her boots, and gripped hold of a handful of grass to keep herself from falling.

_Okran, please have mercy on this woman._

“Take the stuff. Let’s get out of here!” Looking spooked, the bandit leader hurried to pick up his fallen brother. “Now!”

Ava gritted her teeth, the fatigue pulling at her muscles. The edge of the cliff was pressing against her stomach, which together with the fear and adrenaline, was making her nauseous. She kicked out uselessly at the empty space beneath her, hoping to find some kind of foothold, but there was nothing.

“Ava, grab my hand,” Kat said.

Ava tried, but her fingers had locked around the grass and nothing she could do would release her vice-like grip. “I – I can’t.”

“Ava. Ava, listen to me.” Ruka was crawling towards them, her movements slow and laborious. “You’re not gonna fall. We got you.” She reached out and closed her fingers around Ava’s wrist. “It’s OK.”

Ava stared wildly at her. She could feel her fingers cramping as she slowly lost circulation, but her brain screamed at her not to let go of the grass. She kicked again, hoping for some forward momentum, but found herself sliding backwards. She shrieked.

“Don’t move! We’re gonna pull you up, OK? On the count of three, yeah? One…”

“No!” Ava cried as Ruka moved forward to get a better hold. The ground was beginning to crumble again. “It can’t hold both our weights, it’s too unstable. Get back!”

The patch of ground surrounding the clump of grass caved. Kat only just managed to pull away in time. Ava’s lower body dropped like a stone, smashing against the cliff face. As cold adrenaline sent her guts into a tangle, she came to the slow realisation that she had not completely fallen. She looked up. Ruka was leaning over the edge of the cliff, her face contorted with concentration as she clung to Ava’s wrist. “Ava!”

Ava had no breath to scream. It was all she could do to force air _into_ her lungs. Her vision was blurring and darkening at the edges, and Ruka’s grip on her wrist was sending spasms of pain down her entire arm. Worse, Ruka was holding onto Ava with her injured right arm. If she kept it up, or tried to haul Ava to safety, her shoulder would completely give out and she’d end up letting go of her anyway. And if _that_ happened, Ruka stood no chance in a fight.

“Ruka, you can’t!” she gasped, as Ruka’s face drifted in and out of focus. “You aren’t going to be able to pull me up. Let go.”

“I am _not_ letting you go – ”

 _I have to do it_ , Ava realised, _and quickly, before I pass out altogether._ Trying not to think about what it meant for her, she twisted her wrist in Ruka’s grip and dug her fingernails as hard as she could into the vulnerable, boneless part just above Ruka’s hand.

She barely registered Ruka’s anguished scream, or the sudden release of her grip. Ava was dimly aware that she was falling, but the darkness was closing in around her as surely as the dust clouds.

_Okran protect them._

The soothing darkness swallowed her up completely, offering her a small mercy from the final impact.


	5. Dust

The journey from Bast had so far proven uneventful, though the slow progress they were making remained infuriating. Having judged Bland to be a halfway competent fighter, Rei had placed him at the rear of the group, and put a sharp-eyed teenager called Pato at the front with her. Scrap pattered along in the middle, occasionally stopping to sniff things.

Pato had already proven himself to be useful, having spotted a couple of United Cities patrols the previous day. With the terrain being as rocky as it was, there was usually sufficient opportunity to hide, and they had successfully managed to escape everyone’s notice. Packs of ravenous bonedogs, however, posed a greater threat, and Rei knew that hiding would be of little use unless the dogs were upwind of them. Thankfully, there wasn’t a great deal of wildlife in the region, and the patrols seemed to have kept most of the outlaws at bay. Their luck was holding up so far, Rei thought as she stared at the scrap of paper they were using as a map. But the group was getting closer to Okran’s Valley now, and whilst the Holy Nation patrols were not actively their enemies, they would still be likely to attack a band of escaped slaves on sight.

“How far to World’s End now?” someone asked from behind Rei.

 _Given the pace we’re making, we’ll be lucky if we ever reach the damn place_. “We’re almost halfway from Bast,” Rei said aloud.

“Our food and water… we’ve nearly run out,” Pato said.

“I know. We’ll just have to ration whatever’s left until we get there. It’s only a day or so.”

The uneasy feeling of being watched had been with Rei ever since they had left the desert. She wasn’t sure what it was – maybe it was something to do with the history of the area – but that vague dread continued to prickle at the back of her neck. When the group took yet another stop to rest, she pulled Bland aside. “This is going to sound stupid, but this place is giving me the creeps. I _swear_ I saw people watching us from up on that ridge just a moment ago.”

Mag laughed from the rock she was perching on. “Oh, that will be the man-eaters.”

“Wait, _what_?” Pato’s voice rose shrilly. He coughed, a tinge of pink in his cheeks. “ _Man-eaters_?”

A shiver rippled around the group. Some of the slaves looked scornful, others fearful. Mag continued to sit serenely on her boulder as if she had never spoken. Rei rounded on her. “Tales of ghosts are one thing, this is quite another. Please don’t scare everyone with stories.”

“Oh, these aren’t just stories. The painted tribes, the cannibals. Haven’t you ever heard of the Cannibal Plains?”

The name rang a bell, but Rei had assumed the plains to be named for some kind of legend. “We’re nowhere near the Cannibal Plains,” she pointed out. “They’re all the way over to the west.”

“Yet the painted tribes of the Northern Coast have been known to roam as far south as Bast. Didn’t you know about them before you brought us here? Maybe you shouldn’t be the one in charge.”

Rei bristled. Lekko put her hand on her shoulder. “We are not contesting Rei’s leadership,” she told Mag firmly. “And we’re not about to all lose our heads over a story, no matter whether you think it’s true or not. The samurai? The Okranites? _They_ are the threat.”

“Thank you, Lekko,” Rei mumbled.

But Lekko’s reassurances were lost on Pato. “What if the cannibals get us?”

“Pato,” Lekko said, “have you seen _any_ cannibals since we left Bast? Or just patrols?”

“Just patrols. And those bonedogs, and that group that looked like they were farmers… do you think they farm people? Shit, what if we’re all about to end up on a people farm?”

“ _Now_ look what you’ve started,” Bland said to Mag.

“Well, don’t say I didn’t warn you.” Mag squished a beetle under her thumb and popped it into her mouth. Rei grimaced and turned away at the loud crunching sound. She wished she could write the cannibals off as just a crazy story from a crazy old woman who ate bugs, but something about the way Mag had said it made her wonder if there was any truth in the words. And she’d seen something in Spade and Jared’s eyes when Mag had spoken. They hadn’t said anything, but Rei suspected they too knew something she didn’t.

“Let’s go,” she said to the group. “We should try and get to Okran’s Valley before noon.”

“Give us five more minutes,” Mag called.

“You don’t even have to _walk_ ,” Lekko said. “We’re taking it in turns to carry you.”

“Trepp, would you carry Mag?” Rei said, ignoring them both.

“Do I have to?” Trepp grumbled. Hunger had made her skinny, but she was one of the strongest-looking members of the group. “Isn’t it someone else’s turn now? Can’t Bland do it?”

“Trepp, I’ve asked you to carry her.”

“Because if she’s right about the cannibals, I don’t think you should…”

Rei felt the weak grasp she’d had on her authority as leader start to slide away from her. “I didn’t ask for your damn opinion! Just do it!”

Lekko raised her eyebrows. Trepp scowled and crouched down to allow Mag to climb onto her back.

It was some time before Rei realised that Scrap was also uneasy. He kept licking his lips, and was staying close to her. Maybe he could smell something on the wind; other dogs, perhaps. She turned around to make sure everyone was moving in a tight formation. “I think we’ll all breathe easier when we’re out of Bast. We should speed up a little.”

“Easy for _you_ to say,” Trepp muttered. “You’re not the one lugging the beetle lady around with you.”

Rei ignored her. “No more breaks until we’re into Okran’s Valley, OK?”

“Says the best-fed of us all,” someone said.

“Yeah, we can’t all go as fast as you.”

“Shut up. She has a point.” Lekko glared at the protesters. “Suck it up. She says we move faster, we move faster. If you have a problem…”

Just then a faint, inhuman scream rang out in the air. If Rei had had hairs on the back of her neck, they would have stood on end. As it was, the short horns down her back were beginning to tingle. “What was that?”

“A bonedog?” Bland suggested.

“I’ve never heard a bonedog make a sound like that before,” Trepp said.

“I told you they were here,” Mag said in a sing-song voice. Spade and Jared exchanged worried glances.

Rei was not about to allow their unease to get the better of them all. “Let’s just keep moving.”

There was another scream, this one closer. It began at a low pitch, slowly sliding up to a high one as if on a scale. It was not a scream of fear, but almost one of jubilance. Rei swallowed and drew her weapon. Seeing her do so, the group collectively did the same. Scrap whimpered.

“Probably just birds,” Bland said.

Rei scanned the surrounding area for signs of movement, but saw nothing. She was just about to write off the sound as the product of an overactive imagination when a loud chorus of screams rang out in the air. This time, Rei recognised them for what they were. Battle-cries. A second later a large group of people spilled out from over the crest of a nearby hill, charging straight at them.

“What the fuck?” Lekko said.

Rei stared at the fast-approaching army. Even at this distance, she could tell they were not a patrol from either the Holy Nation or the United Cities. They looked human, but not like any human Rei had ever seen, and their clothes… It took Rei a moment to realise they were naked and covered in body paint, or tattoos – she wasn’t sure which. Their faces looked like bloody skulls, and their teeth were bared in feral snarls as they advanced with cleavers in their hands.

Rei snapped into action. “Let’s go!” she shouted. “Go, go, go!”

They ran, stumbling and tripping, adrenaline driving them forward. Rei heard screams from the back of the group, but her legs wouldn’t have allowed her to stop if she’d tried. The army was shouting and hollering words that Rei didn’t understand, nor did she want to understand. How were they going to lose them? _Were_ they going to be able to lose them?

She glanced back. The rear of the group had stopped to defend themselves from the painted humans, but they were losing the fight. Her momentum continued to carry her forward, and without seeing where she was going she thudded straight into Pato. It was as well that she was holding her sword off to one side, or she would have done him a serious injury. “Sorry.”

“The cannibals,” Pato whispered.

“Stay here,” Rei said, and ran forward.

There were too many of them, at least as many as there were escaped slaves, and they looked far better fed, too. Several fell to Rei’s fragment axe, and looked as though they were unlikely to get up again, but for every person she downed, there were always at least three more. Out of the corner of her eye she saw a few of the cannibals disappearing over the hills. Were they going to set up another ambush? Were they going to attack from a different angle? She swung her axe again, taking off someone’s arm. Scrap was diving in and out of people’s legs, biting at them. Bland was attempting to protect Lekko, who in turn was trying to reach their own wounded. The air stank of blood and rust, and was thick with the sense of something primal that made Rei want to flee.

“They’re trying to take Hanbu!” Pato yelled.

Rei hurtled after one of the cannibals, who was attempting to flee with the Hiver over her shoulder. “Not so fast!”

The woman half-turned, but couldn’t wield both her cleaver and her captive. Rei’s axe caught her across her naked chest, and she folded. Hanbu went down with her, and it took Rei a couple of anxious moments to drag the Hiver out from underneath the woman. He’d been cleaved almost in two across the waist. Rei fought the urge to throw up.

_How could I have let this happen? I should have gone with my instincts._

More and more cannibals were retreating, the slaves draped over their shoulders. Rei made to give chase, but Lekko grabbed her arm. “Don’t be stupid! There’s too many of them. Cover me while I see to Hanbu, yeah?”

“But what about…”

“We can’t!” Lekko’s face was pale. “And you’re our strongest fighter. We can’t lose you.”

Several of the cannibals had already seen Lekko kneeling beside Hanbu and were racing towards her. Rei lunged at them with the axe, but a cleaver blow to her already injured arm caused her to drop the weapon. She lashed out with her uninjured limbs, aiming for eyes, knees and groins, desperately trying to stay at close enough range that the cleavers – which required two hands to wield – were ineffective.

“Hey!” A club was brought down on the head of Rei’s nearest attacker. The man folded, revealing Jared standing behind him. “You and Lekko, get back!”

Lekko appeared not to have heard. She was still kneeling at Hanbu’s side, her hand holding the Hiver’s. “He’s dead.”

Rei pulled her up, unresisting, from the ground. “And we’re about to be too if we don’t move now!”

Their enemies were significantly fewer in numbers now, but the fight was not over yet. Rei grabbed a slaver’s club, lying abandoned in the sand, and hurried forward. It was an odd weighting, and she was not used to wielding something so blunt, but it was light enough for her to be able to use one-handed. She ran forward to defend Spade, who was on the ground scrabbling for her weapon. A cleaver came down towards her head, and Spade raised a hand to protect herself. She screamed at the impact, blood pouring from her hand. Jared looked up from his own fight and narrowly missed getting a cleaver to the chest as a result.

“Hey!” Rei yelled as she charged. “Get away from her!”

The cannibal looked stunned. He tried to run away, but Rei’s club smacked him in the skull. A month and a half of freedom had restored some of Rei’s wasted muscles, and she felt the dull thud of a skull being cracked inwards. _That_ was one person who wouldn’t be getting up again.

Jared was facing off against the very last of their assailants. Rei hurried to help him. One by one the cannibals went down, and Rei was left standing in the middle of an impromptu battlefield strewn with naked, painted corpses.

“We fought them off?” she said in shock. “I thought we were…”

Rei looked around. Lekko was huddled, wide-eyed, against a rock. Spade was clutching at her hand whilst Jared comforted her. Scrap was limping among the fallen corpses towards the painted arm Rei had taken off earlier. Hanbu was lying dead on the ground. The rest of the escaped slaves – whom Rei had slept and fought alongside – were gone, carried away to who knew where.

 _Bland_. Bland was gone too. The one person who had stuck by her, reassured her and checked on her, carried away with all the rest like it had been nothing.

In a daze Rei walked over to her abandoned axe and re-strapped it to her back. “Scrap, come here, boy.”

He whined, his front paw lifted off the ground. Rei hurried forwards to pick him up and check the injury, but he snapped at her. It was a snap of pain rather than aggression, but his teeth were sharp, and Rei was lucky to pull her hand away in time.

“Oh, you poor thing,” she whispered. “We’ll have to get Lekko to look at that.”

Lekko, quick to recover, was moving between survivors, tending to their wounds. She looked a little annoyed at being asked to play doctor to a bonedog, but seeing the expression on Rei’s face, sighed and inspected the leg. “Could be broken. If you can find a way to muzzle him, I’ll do what I can.”

Rei found a piece of rope in an abandoned bag, and spent an anxious ten minutes trying to keep Scrap’s jaws away from Lekko’s fingers. Even with the muzzle on he was a challenge. He kept pulling his injured leg away from her, and it took a large amount of soothing and fussing before Lekko was able to apply a makeshift splint.

“How are they?” Rei asked. “The ones who are… who are still here.”

“Well, you saw what happened to Hanbu. Apart from him, Spade’s lost a couple of fingers, but that’s the most serious, I think. Let me look at your arm.”

“Where do you think they’ll have taken the others?” Rei said as Lekko put her arm in a sling.

“I don’t know, Rei. But if they’re cannibals… and not to judge by appearances, but they certainly look like they could have been… it’ll be to nowhere good.”

“And there’s nothing we can do, is there?” Rei said quietly.

“Not unless you want to lose everyone else.”

“You’re right.” Rei stood up, sliding the club into her belt. It would have to do as a weapon until her arm was better. “And it looks like Mag was right about something, too. Maybe we should have listened to her more.” She paused as horrible realisation dawned on her. “Oh no. _Trepp_. I asked her to carry Mag, and that probably slowed her down enough for…”

“No. You can’t start thinking like that. This is _not_ your fault. If it hadn’t been Trepp, it would have been someone else.” She sighed. “Believe me, I know how hard it is to ignore all the what-ifs in your head, and I know _don’t blame yourself_ is easier said than done, but…”

“Skimmers?” Rei said.

“What?”

“It wasn’t cannibals for you. It was skimmers, wasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Lekko said after a long silence. “Yeah, it was. Come on, we can’t wait around for those cannibals to come back for seconds. We gotta keep moving.”

Rei stared at the path ahead of her, her eyes blurring. She had failed on her promise that she would get everyone to World’s End. She was turning her back on seven people who had been captured, and would most likely meet even worse fates than Hanbu. What kind of a leader was she, if she abandoned half her team?

 _You know the answer to that_ , Haga said.

“Well?” Lekko was looking at Rei expectantly.

Rei licked her lips. She knew what the right call was, but that didn’t mean making it was easy.

_I’m sorry, Trepp. And Bland, and Mag, and Jumper, and Pato. And to the people I never even learnt the names of, I failed you twice._

“Let’s get out of here,” she said.

 

* * *

 

For a few seconds after Ava had fallen, there was silence. Kat listened for the sound of impact, but heard nothing over the howling of the wind below. She stared into the dusty abyss and saw nothing, either. “Ruka.”

Ruka was still leaning over the edge of the cliff, her fingers curled as if she was still holding onto Ava. “She’s… _Fuck_!” She jumped to her feet, seething in pain at the sudden movement. Before Kat could say or do anything, she was charging down the path to the base of the cliff, hidden in the dust clouds. “Ava? Ava!”

Kat hurried after Ruka. The sandstorm was so thick she had no idea how they were even going to find Ava. She coughed, covering her face with her arm, and stumbled with her hand against the side of the cliff. Here the cliff face was steep, but as she pressed forward it became more sloping. As the dust momentarily parted she caught sight of Ruka, kneeling at the base of the cliff next to a figure lying face-down on the ground.

Kat felt as though a fist had tightened around her heart. Every beat sent spasms of dull horror through her veins. _Ava_.

She looked up at the cliff face, a good twenty or thirty feet above their heads. Ava must have dropped at least ten of those feet before she’d hit the rocky slope and ragdolled down it. If she was still alive – _if_ she was still alive – she must have broken every bone in her body.

“Is she…”

“I don’t know.” Ruka’s voice was muffled.

Kat knelt beside them. At first she mistook Ava’s stillness for death, but then she heard her friend’s groan. As she watched, Ava’s hand slowly crawled across the dirt, scrabbling for Ruka. Ruka grabbed it.

“Why did you force me to let go, you idiot?”

Ava mumbled something, tried to speak up, and gasped in pain. “Can’t breathe…”

Her concern overriding her initial caution, Kat put a hand on Ava’s shoulder and rolled her onto her back. She was covered in livid bruises from her fall, and one of the glass eyepieces had shattered on her goggles. The broken glass was smeared with blood. “Ruka, take her goggles off. Ava, I’m going to check your ribs, OK?”

“I think I broke a couple,” Ava whispered.

“Yeah, you might be right about that. You think anything else is broken?”

Ava gingerly flexed her wrists and ankles. “Not that I can tell.”

Ruka looked as though she wanted to punch the cliff Ava had fallen down. “You were damn lucky.”

“I fainted, I think. Must’ve been out when I hit the ground. Probably what saved me.” She tried to sit up, but pain creased her face and she grabbed at the right side of her chest. “ _Argh_.”

“Easy,” Ruka said, her face paling. “Don’t try and move. I’m gonna carry you.”

“You can’t, you’re hurt too.”

“Doesn’t matter.”

Ava didn’t argue the point. She allowed Ruka to lift her into her arms, though she cried out as her ribcage bumped against Ruka’s chest.

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” Ruka’s shoulders shook.

They took cover behind a couple of large boulders that acted as a windbreak, keeping the worst of the dust out of their lungs and faces. Ruka propped Ava against the rock and sat next to her. Kat sat on Ava’s other side. The wind had brought a distinct chill to the canyon, and had they still had their sleeping bags Kat might have suggested using them to keep Ava warm, but all they had was body heat.

“Let me see that eye,” Kat said, remembering the busted goggles.

Mindful of her dusty fingers, she gently pulled at the skin around Ava’s eye. A shard of glass had scratched the eyelid, but the eye itself seemed to be undamaged, at least as far as she could tell in the dim light. Still, Kat would have liked to rinse it out just to be sure. She wished the bandits had left their water, or indeed left them anything.

“It’s gonna be OK,” she said.

“My eye, or the fact we’ve lost all our supplies?”

“We’ll get more when we’re out of United Cities territory.”

“We still have a walk across the Skimsands.” Ava rested her head against the boulder, her eyes fluttering closed. “I’m only going to end up slowing you down… maybe you two should…”

“Absolutely not,” Ruka interrupted. “We are _not_ gonna leave you behind.”

Having done what she could for Ava – which was next to nothing – Kat gestured for Ruka to move forward so she could gauge how injured she actually was. She remembered the time Rei had stubbornly pressed forward through the desert until she’d collapsed, and she didn’t fully trust Ruka not to have the same mindset. Ruka seemed to have been bashed about more than anything else – the bandits had evidently been trying to subdue rather than kill – but Kat could tell she was in pain.

“What are we gonna do?” Ruka said. “Kat?”

“I… we’ll think of something.”

They sat huddled in defeated silence, listening to the howls of the wind and the mournful cries of bonedogs in the distance. Bonedogs weren’t the only threat, either. Skimmers, more bandits… and the wind could change direction at any time and induce a potentially dangerous coughing fit in Ava. Kat could hear Ava’s breathing was slightly laboured, but she didn’t sound like either of her lungs had been punctured. She would probably be all right, at least for now.

Kat took hold of Ava’s hand. Ava’s grip reflexively tightened, like a baby grasping. “I’m sorry, Kat,” she said faintly.

“It’s fine.”

“No, you… you were right.”

Ava’s eyes closed again. Ruka gently brushed her hair out of her face. “Rest.”

“Oh, now the roles are reversed you’re willing to dish out the advice you never take?” Ava mumbled.

“I know, I’m sorry. I realise all the worry I must have caused you over the last year.”

“Hey, my job to worry. I’m the damn doctor.”

Ava leant against Ruka for support, her head lolling slightly. Slowly her face relaxed into something more peaceful. Kat gave her hand a squeeze and gently let go. Ruka was staring down at her with wide eyes. “Is she OK?”

“I think she’s passed out. Hopefully she won’t be in so much pain now.”

“That’s at least something. Kat…”

Kat looked up.

“I didn’t want to say this in front of Ava, but we’re kind of screwed right now. We’re at least a day’s walk from relative safety, with no food, no water, no bandages, and a shit-ton of skimmers between here and there. I can’t fight, especially not if I’m gonna have to carry Ava. And Ava’s sword must have fallen somewhere but we haven’t found it. We don’t even have one usable weapon between the three of us. So if you have any ideas, any at all…” She trailed off at the expression on Kat’s face.

“I’m sorry,” Kat said hopelessly.

Ruka bowed her head. “We’re completely fucked, aren’t we?”

Kat did not reply. She wasn’t sure there was anything she could say.


	6. Machinist

Things moved quickly after the cannibal assault. Rei hadn’t counted on just how big a role fear and desperation had to play in forgetting hunger, exhaustion and injuries. They reached Okran’s Valley some time before the sun was at its highest, and although Rei suggested a brief noonday rest in the shade of the trees that covered the area, the slaves, for once, refused a break.

Their marching formation was not as strict as it had been. With only four of them left, they walked in two groups. Rei and Lekko took the front, whilst Spade and Jared took the rear. Scrap lay quietly in Rei’s arms, whimpering through his muzzle.

“We need to watch out for Okranite patrols,” Spade said. It was the first time she’d said anything since the attack. “This is Holy Nation territory.”

“I’d rather meet ten Okranite patrols than another group of cannibals,” Lekko muttered from next to them.

Rei twitched at the mention of the cannibals. She could only hope that the people who’d been carried off had been as dead as Hanbu. Her instincts, however, suggested otherwise.

“You did what you could,” Lekko said, seeing her flinch.

“Which was nothing.”

Rei remembered the expressions on Spade and Jared’s faces. She slowed her pace slightly, allowing them to catch up to her. “You two knew,” she said accusingly. “You _knew_ she was telling the truth.”

“We didn’t want to panic anyone,” Spade said, her voice wobbling with pain and shock.

“Besides, we knew there weren’t any cannibal camps in Bast,” Jared added. “Used to be some, but the Cannibal Hunters drove them back. Believe me, we weren’t expecting them this far south any more than anyone else.”

“How do _you_ know about cannibals anyway?”

“We’re Tech Hunters,” Jared said simply. “Or we were, before we were enslaved. We’ve met plenty of cannibals in our time.”

Off in the distance Rei could make out a mountain range that seemed to jag up high into the sky. World’s End was somewhere up there. It seemed tantalisingly close yet so far away. Rei had no idea if they’d be able to make it there before nightfall, but the thought of spending another night out in the open after what had just happened was too awful to contemplate.

As the hours passed by, the group’s pace slowed again. Rei could tell that they were all growing weaker. For the first time, she realised just how much she’d actually put them through. Whoever had said Rei was the best-fed had been completely right, and with the amount Rei was currently struggling, she had no idea how the others were still on their feet. They were hurt, there was no hope for their kidnapped friends, and they’d faced a brutal, exhausting fight. They wouldn’t stand a chance against even the scrawniest of bonedogs at this point.

Rei looked up at the mountains again. The heat of the midday sun was unbearable, and when half the group had been carried away, so had half of the supplies. They had some water left, but several days of rationing had already made them dehydrated, to the point where Rei’s kidneys were beginning to ache. A glance at the others told her that they were feeling the same way.

“Pass round the water,” Rei said to Lekko.

“Are you sure? We only have three-quarters of a waterskin left, if that.”

“It’ll have to do.”

As thirsty as they all were, a sense of duty to their fellows kept them from taking more than a few sips of water at a time. They continued to pass the skin around until there was none remaining. Now the water was another thing they no longer had. Rei regretted having allowed them to use the last of it up, especially when they still had a long ascent ahead of them, but at least forgoing the rationing seemed to have boosted morale a little.

The sun was sinking low as they reached the foothills of the Arm of Okran. Rei stared up at the sheer cliffs and steep drops, and wondered how they were going to find their way up there. Blinking the dark spots from her eyes, she mumbled, “Anyone see a path?”

“What’d you say?”

“A path. Anyone see one?”

“I know a way up,” Jared said.

Jared scouted a little way ahead. Lekko grabbed Rei’s unbandaged arm, guiding her over to a nearby rock. “Sit down,” she said.

“We need a path for walking on.”

“Yeah… yeah, we know that… have you been drinking with the rest of us?” Lekko’s eyes narrowed in sudden suspicion. “Was the water earlier the first time you’d had anything to drink since leaving Bast?”

“I can’t remember.”

“For a leader, you make some pretty foolish personal choices,” Lekko said, but her tone was despairing rather than angry. As Rei became dimly aware of a shout from Jared, Lekko helped her up from her perch. “Sounds like he’s found the way up. We’ll get you there, don’t worry.”

The path was steep and narrow, and in places they had to walk in single file. Rei found herself walking between Spade and Lekko, who had taken charge at the front of the group. Whenever she swayed, Lekko would grab her by the shirt and keep her from falling down the cliffside. Rei wasn’t sure what had happened to Scrap, but she dimly remembered Lekko prising him from her arms earlier.

They zigzagged up the side of the mountain. Jared continued to scout in front of them, bringing back reports of a clear path ahead. Rei began to despair of it ever ending. All she wanted was to close her eyes and sleep, but somehow her legs still carried her with no conscious effort on her part.

“Barrels,” Kat said in her ear.

“What d’you mean?” Rei muttered sluggishly.

“We had a water barrel. Back in Bark. I can bring it for you.”

“No, don’t go… I need to… need to…”

“Rei, who are you talking to?” Lekko said.

“Water barrels.”

“Guys, I think she’s hallucinating.”

“No I’m not. Kat’s bringing water.”

“How is she affected so much worse than the rest of us?” Jared’s voice sounded like fog, swirling and echoing and intangible. “I know she’s hardly drunk anything, but…”

“I don’t know. Rei? Rei? It’s going to be OK, we’re nearly there, Jared’s found the place. We’ll get you some water, we’ll have a rest, we’re all going to be OK, all right? Rei?”

“No, we can’t get arrested. They can’t know the United Cities will be after us, after me… Lekko, promise you won’t tell them.”

“I said _a_ rest. Nobody is gonna sell you out. We’re all gonna be fine.”

They rounded a corner and Rei found herself on a plateau facing a gate. There were six people on the gates… or was it three? She couldn’t tell anymore, and their faces blurred and shifted the longer she stared at them. Lekko guided her forwards.

“Well, don’t you look a mess,” remarked one of the guards, moving to one side to let them through.

“What are you talking about?” Rei mumbled. “This is the height of fashion, don’t you know?”

There was a chuckle. “You’ve got spirit for someone about to fall over.”

“Thanks. I don’t have spirits, though. Not drunk. Promise.”

“Hey, Rei. Look at me.” A pair of cool hands tilted Rei’s face. Lekko’s blurry form swam and in and out of focus. “We’re here, we’re safe. We’re going to get you lying down, all right?” She turned to someone out of Rei’s line of vision. “What should we do?”

“We’ll go to the Tech Hunters,” Spade said. “Me and Jared, we know them. They might be able to…”

But what the Tech Hunters might have been able to do, Rei never had the chance to find out. Her friends’ voices resounded inside her head, bouncing painfully off her skull. Somebody screamed her name, but she had no idea who it was or why. All she was aware of was that one minute the lights were flickering, and the next, they were out altogether.

The next thing she was aware of was someone wrapping something around her head. She tried to open her eyes, but the lids felt glued shut. It took her several attempts before she managed it, and when her eyes were able to focus, she realised she was staring up at a strange man. She screamed.

“I told you not to touch her!” Lekko’s voice shouted.

The face disappeared, along with murmured apologies. Rei cast around desperately for someone familiar and caught sight of Lekko, who had jumped into the space the man had formerly been filling. “Hey.”

“What’s going on?”

“You collapsed. Here, drink this.” The teat of a waterskin was gently pushed between Rei’s cracked lips. She drank until the waterskin was empty, but it still felt insufficient. “I’m going to take a look at your head, all right?”

“My head? Why my head?”

“Because you didn’t let me look at it when you got brained by those thugs in Bast,” Lekko said tightly.

“Oh.”

Lekko helped Rei sit up and prodded at the bruise for several minutes. Finally she said, “Iyo has some cold compresses. We’ll bandage your head with some of those and get you resting somewhere that isn’t going to inconvenience anyone.”

“Wait.” Rei looked down. She was on a bed, but how she had got there was a mystery to her. “Where am I? Who’s Iyo?”

“Oh yeah, you missed quite a lot. You’ve been out for about fifteen minutes. Iyo is one of the people in charge around here. We’re in the headquarters of the University of Machinists.”

“What’s that?”

“I don’t know. A bunch of boffins, I think. You need more water? I can get you some.”

“No,” Rei said, though her tongue still felt dry. “Stay here, please.”

“OK.”

At that moment a Skeleton arrived with a bag of first-aid supplies. “Oh, so you’ve rebooted.”

“I think so,” Rei said in confusion.

“Rei,” Lekko said, “this is Iyo.”

Rei tried to smile. The Skeleton ignored her and started pulling things out of the bag. “Hold these against his head while I bandage,” he said to Lekko.

“I’m a woman.”

“Man, woman, all the same to us Skeletons.”

“So, you’re the Machinists?” Rei asked.

“That’s right.”

“Well, thanks for helping us.”

“We wouldn’t, normally. But you had two Tech Hunters with you, and we always help out Tech Hunters.”

“Two Tech Hunters?” Rei said, vaguely remembering the conversation she’d had earlier.

Spade stepped out of the shadows, her hand swathed in bandages. She smiled faintly at Rei. “Hi.”

Iyo finished tying the bandage around Rei’s head. “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I have other business to attend to. You’ll have to find somewhere else to rest. These are people’s beds and they’ll want to use them. You’re welcome to use the floor downstairs for now.”

“Sure.” Rei stumbled to her feet, clutching at Lekko for support. “Where’s Scrap?”

“The Machinists are looking after him downstairs,” Lekko said.

Jared were sitting with the Machinists, talking to a couple of men wearing brown caps. Scrap had evidently calmed down enough to warrant the removal of the muzzle, and one of the men was hand-feeding him chunks of jerky. It took Rei a moment to realise the other man was re-splinting Scrap’s leg, and the jerky was being used as a tool to keep him occupied. She smiled despite herself.

“So you’re their leader, are you?” the man with the jerky said to Rei.

“Yeah.”

“Well, you got here. That certainly says something for your abilities.”

Rei’s smile faded. “Most of our group was taken by cannibals.”

“Oh, well, you know. There’s a reason us Machinists prefer to stay put. We leave the dangerous stuff to the Tech Hunters, like Jared here.”

“Well,” Jared said.

“Except you and Spade got caught by the manhunters, right? Bastards.”

“Actually, we got framed for hash smuggling by the city guards in Sho-Battai. But close enough.”

At the sight of Spade, Jared got to his feet. “Iyo seen to your hand?” he said.

“Yeah. Good news there. Thought I’d lost three fingers, apparently it was only two.” Her voice, which had previously been brave, cracked. Jared hugged her and she folded against him, sobbing. “But you’re alive. You weren’t carried off.”

He stroked the stubs of her horns. “Sister, if we’re going to die, we’re not going to die like that.”

“Wait,” Lekko said suddenly, “you two are _siblings_?”

“We’re twins,” said Jared. “Why, what did you think we were?”

Lekko pinkened slightly. It was the first time Rei had seen her flustered. “I… I didn’t…”

“Can’t you see the family resemblance?” Spade added. “Typical flatskins…”

“Excuse me?”

“Organic flesh sacks,” Iyo interrupted, “please stop bickering. Some of us have limited memory space and would rather not devote it to ridiculous conversations such as these.” He walked away, muttering to himself.

Lekko chuckled weakly. “We should go and rest up.”

After counting their cats and realising they had far less money than they’d thought, they decided to take Iyo up on his offer and sleep in the headquarters under the ramp. The Machinists brought some sleeping bags and they settled down for the night, Scrap nestled against Rei’s feet.

Sleep did not come easily to Rei. Although she was sufficiently rehydrated, her lower back still ached, and her lips still felt a little dry. Her head ached with a mixture of sun and bruises, in spite of the refreshing coolness bandaged tightly against her scalp. Furthermore, the lights were constantly on in the base, and whilst most of the Machinists went up to bed after a few hours, Iyo continued to potter about and mutter to himself. His associate, a Hiver with goggles like Ava’s, was also awake, perching on a workbench and flicking through a book.

“Finch, do you know where the capacitor has gone?”

“Nope,” said the Hiver, not looking up.

“It was on this shelf!”

“Oh, yeah. I moved it.”

“ _Where_ did you move it?”

“Look, I’m busy. I’m trying to concentrate. Stop interrupting.”

“When I find that capacitor, I’ll…” Iyo began threateningly. He turned around and noticed Rei sitting against the wall, quietly watching them both. “Ah. You are awake. I thought you were in idle mode.”

“We’ve been through this, Iyo,” Finch said wearily, turning the page of his book. “It’s called _sleeping_.”

Rei clambered out of her sleeping bag, careful not to wake Scrap, and wandered over to one of the workbenches. She picked up what looked like a flat piece of green metal covered in golden pins, and turned it over in her hand. “So, what do you guys actually _do_?”

“Put that down!” Finch was there in an instant, yanking it away from her. “Have you _any_ idea how fragile these pins are? I don’t need your big meaty hands sweating all over the circuit board, or messing up the charge.”

“He’s right,” said Iyo. “Static. As a Skeleton, I hate it.”

“OK, OK. I’m sorry. I won’t touch the stuff.”

Finch glared at Rei as though she’d just strangled his firstborn son. He slowly returned the circuit board to the table, and hopped back onto his workbench.

“We at the University of Machinists have dedicated our lives to recovering lost technologies,” he said pompously. “We exist to improve the world, distilling knowledge into digestible volumes of information. If you’ve ever seen one of those books with the green covers, they’re one of ours.” At Rei’s blank expression he added, “Oh, typical illiterate types.”

“Hey! I can read a little.”

“That’s all people can do nowadays,” Finch grumbled. “Read a _little_. Literacy’s fast becoming a lost art. And when we’ve lost it, we lose all the technology we’ve gathered and distilled and our efforts will ultimately be for naught.”

“Right. Hey, I have a friend you’d probably get along with. Her name’s Ava. She wants to find old technology and stuff, so she can become a better doctor.”

“Hm. Well, send her our way,” Finch said.

“Oh. I don’t know if I’ll ever see her again, actually.” Rei bit her lip.

“Then stop wasting my time! I don’t want to listen to prattle and chit-chat. Go and bother Iyo.”

Iyo was turning the place upside down searching for the capacitor. “Damn it, Finch. You need to stop moving things. What did you _do_ with it?”

“Gave it to Reck to put in the prototype.”

“ _What_ prototype? Oh, for fuck’s sake.” Iyo slammed his metal fist into the nearest bench. The tools that had been strewn across the table jumped slightly at the impact. “You can’t just give things to people without consulting me first.”

“I can, because I’m the one in charge.”

“Of course you are,” Iyo muttered.

Tucked away under the stairs, Lekko stirred, briefly opened her eyes, then rolled over and went back to sleep.

“Now look what you’ve done,” Finch said. “Smashing the place up, waking our guests…”

If Skeletons could glare, Iyo would definitely be doing so. He turned and walked away, swatting the book out of Finch’s hands as he did.

“Hey!” Finch grabbed the book off the floor, dusted it on his trousers, and tucked it into a pocket. “It’s impossible to do any work while you’re bothering me. I’m going to bed.”

Things were a little quieter after Finch had gone upstairs. Iyo picked up a large pile of what looked like blueprints and carried them over to a worktable. Rei leant against a nearby wall and watched. “So, who gets the books you write?”

“Anyone and everyone.”

“Does that include the Holy Nation?”

Iyo, who’d been measuring an angle on one of the blueprints, stopped. “Yes, boy,” he said. “That includes the Holy Nation. We do not discriminate on who gets our knowledge.”

“But why them? I thought they hated Skeletons.”

“I hold no love for the Okranites,” Iyo said, “any more than they do for me. But I cannot deny they hold order in their lands, no matter how repressive that order may be. Security, it’s a thing people need in this world.”

“Huh. You know what else is secure?” Rei found herself rubbing at her wrists. “Shackles.”

“Slaves of Okran, were you?”

“United Cities.”

“Oh, yes. Spade said something about that.”

Judging by Iyo’s offhanded remark, he was unaware of the specifics. Rei breathed a sigh of relief. “So, you recover lost knowledge. Is it all just tech, or have you found anything else?”

“Are you talking about history?”

“I suppose.”

“Well, Mr Finch has a lot of theories about what came before. He’ll talk at you for hours if you catch him on a good day, which is to say hardly ever. Anything in particular you want to know about?”

Rei shrugged. “You know, with Skeletons being basically immortal and all that, I’d have thought you guys would remember the ancient times.”

Iyo did not reply for a long moment. Finally he said, “Alas, our memories do not last that long. Though my body may have seen the days of the old empires, my mind has forgotten it.”

“Oh, right,” Rei said, a little disappointed. “That must be frustrating.”

“It is, believe me. Now, if you will excuse me, I must try and find a spare capacitor. I recommend idling for the remainder of the night.”

Iyo wandered off to the far side of the room, hunting through boxes and muttering swearwords. Rei went back to her sleeping bag. Scrap had rolled onto it, and it took some gentle prodding to get him to move so she could climb in. His body heat had sunk through the fabric, warming it for her, and she lay down with a contented sigh. They’d had a terrible day, filled with rampaging cannibals and injuries and in Rei’s case, hallucinations, but it had ended well for at least some of them. The rest… Rei shuddered and tried not to think about it, but the more she tried not to think, the more she thought. They would be dead by now, no doubt. If only she had done more to stop the cannibals carrying them away…

She closed her eyes. Even when the cannibals weren’t on her mind, and Lord Haga’s head wasn’t rotting, there was always something. _Kat_. She didn’t remember the climb up the mountain that clearly – her head had been in a foggy place – but she distinctly remembered the auditory hallucinations. They only served to remind her of how much she missed Kat and the others.

_They might be dead too, just like Bland and Trepp and all the rest._

At first she thought it was Lord Haga who had spoken, but the thought was in her own voice. Of course it was. All the thoughts in her head were her own, no matter how many times they tried to masquerade as the slave master’s snide remarks. She wondered again if she was completely mad. _You’re not going crazy_ , Ava had said, but what if she was wrong?

“I’m not crazy,” Rei whispered to herself, “and they’re not dead.”

“Are you OK?” Lekko said from beside her.

“I’m fine. Sorry for disturbing you.”

“Nah, it’s all right. You should try and sleep though.”

Rei rolled over onto her side, taking care not to squash Scrap. From this angle she could see Iyo moving about in his workshop. She watched him for a long time, her eyelids gradually growing heavier, and when she did finally sleep, it was to the sound of his murmurings about Finch, and why Iyo deserved to be the one in control of things.

 

* * *

 

Ava awoke in darkness. For a moment she wondered if she was dead, but the pain in her chest as she tried to breathe in told her otherwise. She shifted slightly, trying not to wake whoever she was slumped against, but failed. The shape stirred behind her. “Ava?”

“Ruka. Hi.” Ava realised she was resting against the crook of her friend’s arm, half-cradled. The warmth and the presence were comforting, especially with the coldness of the desert night. She shivered a little, and the arm drew her slightly closer.

“Sorry,” Ruka said. “I know this isn’t ideal.”

Ava became aware of another person tucked against them, resting over her legs like a blanket. She nudged Kat with her bruised knee. Kat rolled over, moving her weight to something more comfortable for Ava. Judging by her long breaths, she was fast asleep.

“When did the sun go down?” Ava was vaguely aware of having drifted in and out of wakefulness, but any kind of timeline was lost to the fogs of her mind.

“A couple of hours ago. It’s what, midnight now?”

“Midnight. We’re going to have to try and move on when it gets light.”

“Ava, you’re not in a state to be going anywhere.”

“So what _do_ we do? Lie here and wait for dehydration to get us? I know what’s happened to our supplies, I know the risks of trying to get across the Skimsands, but I also know what our chances are going to be like if we stay in this canyon. I wasn’t born yesterday.”

“No, you weren’t, but you nearly _died_ yesterday.” Ruka’s voice caught. “Ava, I’m sorry for the things I said the other night. I – I guess I was just being paranoid, especially after…”

“Hey. For what’s it’s worth, I’m sorry too. If I’ve ever made you feel like you’re lesser or something, coz you’re not. Honestly? I think you’re the better person. I have book smarts, you have courage and loyalty and…”

Ruka chuckled awkwardly. “Now you’re just embarrassing me.”

“It’s true though.”

“I don’t think either of us have come out of this looking good. But Ava, uh…” There was a pause. “Even if we don’t feel the same way about each other, I value your friendship more than anything else. I really want to stay your friend.”

“I wasn’t planning on going anywhere,” Ava murmured. “Unfortunately for you.” She closed her eyes; there wasn’t much point in keeping them open when the inky blackness was all she could see. “You never told me what she was like.”

“Total opposite of you. She was never much of a thinker, unless it was battle plans. She always said that one day she was going to find a gutter, catch it, and ride it straight into the Holy Nation.”

Ava laughed and instantly regretted it.

“Don’t do that,” Ruka said, somewhat unhelpfully.

“What was her name, anyway?”

“Taura,” Ruka said softly. “But as you know, no Shek wants to be intimately associated with a disgraced warrior. She turned her back on me before they’d even had a chance to cut my horns off.”

“I’m sorry.”

“Guess she had a reputation to maintain.”

“Well, that was a stupid choice on her part.”

“Maybe,” Ruka said.

Ava ran a hand over her broken ribs. She was pretty sure they were fractured rather than busted inwards, which was a mercy. They would probably heal fairly normally, if they ever had a chance. “I meant what I said, you know,” she mumbled. “About leaving me. You and Kat will be better off if you…”

“Stop saying that. Look, Ava, I’m gonna make you a promise. No matter what happens, I am _not_ abandoning you. Remember our early arrangement, when we first met? You bandage me up and I protect you.”

“But…”

“Too late. Oaths are sacred to the Shek. You’re not getting left behind.”

Ava snorted, but her body was shaking. The movement sent spasms of pain across her chest.

“Oh, no. You aren’t getting emotional on me, are you?”

“Just cold,” Ava lied.

Ruka pulled her closer. “I’m sorry I couldn’t fight them off. I couldn’t even stop you falling.”

“It’s not your fault.”

“Not when you tried to play the hero and sacrifice yourself.”

“I know a song about that,” Kat said sleepily from beside Ava.

Ava felt Ruka twitch. “How long have you been listening?”

“Since Ava shoved me awake.”

“I did not _shove_ you – ”

“Anyone want to hear the song? I know it sounds like it should be an epic tale of heroism, but it’s actually really rude. My grandmother used to get angry at me for singing it.”

“This is not the right time and place for tuneless voice wabbling,” Ruka said, “not when there are things hiding in the night that want to kill us.”

“Hey! Who are you calling tuneless? I know how to sing, my grandmother taught me, I can carry a tune.”

“Both of you, please,” Ava muttered. “Also, Kat, keep your voice down.”

“Sorry,” Kat said breathlessly.

“Are you OK, Kat?” Ava said.

“Um, so. I had an idea. And I can’t stop thinking about it. But it’s a really crazy idea, and it might not work, but if we don’t try it then we’re probably fucked, and…”

“Spare me the introduction. What’s the plan?”

“I go and steal our stuff back.”

“Nope,” Ava said at once.

“No way,” Ruka added.

“Well don’t take this too personally, but I’m the only one who stands much of a chance nicking things.”

“That’s not the part of the plan that’s bothering me,” Ava said. “It’s the idea of finding the bandit camp, waltzing into the bandit camp, poking around the bandit camp until you find the stuff, and somehow getting away without being seen.”

“I’m sneaky enough.”

“That isn’t even the only problem. There isn’t much of a storm at the moment, but one could spring up at any minute. And we don’t have a light, so what if you fall over the edge of a cliff in the dark? What if you can’t find your way back and run into a bonedog?”

“Then I’ll go in the daytime.”

“No. Absolutely not.”

“Ava is right,” Ruka said. “We’re not losing you. I think our best plan is to start moving as soon as it gets light, and try and get through the Skimsands without incident. We’ll have to be careful, but I think we could manage it. We get to the Holy Nation, we try not to draw any attention to ourselves, we pass through, we reach the Hub. And then we rest up.”

Kat did not reply.

“Kat, don’t go doing anything stupid. We can’t afford any further mistakes.”

“OK, I won’t. Happy?”

“Ecstatic,” Ava mumbled.

“But I’m just saying, we’re not going to get far with no food, no water, and no money to buy it with.”

“We have money… right?” Ava said faintly. “Didn’t you have a string of cats in your pocket, Ruka?”

“I…” Ruka shifted slightly, rummaging through her pockets. “Shit! They must have fallen out when I was fighting.”

“Never mind mistakes,” Kat said. “We can’t afford _anything_.”

Ava pinched the space between her eyebrows. Bribing the samurai on the sands felt like a million years ago now.

“There’s a river in the Holy Nation,” she said. “We’ll just follow that for as far as we can. As for food, we can survive without it for a while.”

“Oh yeah, and what do we do when we reach the Hub, half-starved? You two are going to be _seriously_ slowed down when you’re hungry and thirsty as well as injured. And if Ruka has to carry you, Ava…”

“Kat, please stop. This is not helpful.”

Kat did not reply. Ava regretted snapping at her. She’d suggested a solution, hadn’t she? It wasn’t her fault that Ava and Ruka weren’t willing to risk it.

“We’ll discuss things in the morning,” Ava said soothingly.

“Yeah, sure.” She heard Kat settle down again.

It was a long and uneasy night for Ava. She wanted to sleep on her side, as she was more accustomed to doing, but her ribs prevented that. So she lay on her back instead, the nape of her neck pressed uncomfortably against Ruka’s arm, the collar of her shirt pulled up over her mouth and nose in case a rogue sandstorm blew straight into their rudimentary shelter. The sweaty stink of the fabric alone was enough to keep her awake.

Eventually she drifted off to sleep, awaking a few hours later as the sun rose. She yawned, but the deep inhalation reminded her of her broken ribs, and she yelped. Ruka was immediately awake, concern showing through her bleary eyes. “Are you OK?”

“Yep… I’m fine…” Ava said with a wince.

Ruka helped her sit up, then scrambled up from the ground. “Shit. If there’s one thing I hate more than fresh bruises, it’s day-old bruises.”

“You sure you’re gonna be OK?” Ava said; Ruka was hobbling like an old woman.

“I’m fine. Just…” Ruka looked around the rocks. The storm had not returned, and aside from the dust carried in the breeze, visibility was good. The sun was blazing already, and without the wind, it was going to be a hot day. “Can you see Kat anywhere?”

Ava used the boulder to claw herself into a standing position. She could barely keep herself on her feet, and Ruka had to grab her before she could trip. She looked around, sure the girl was sitting in a crevice out of immediate sight, but there was no sign of her.

Kat was gone.

 


	7. Thievery

Kat crouched on the rocky outcrop, keeping both eyes open for danger. The sun had not yet fully risen, and the western-facing side of the rock was cloaked in shadow. With the sun spreading its rays behind her, she would be nothing more than a silhouette to anyone looking up from the bandit camp below. She got down onto her belly – it was better not to run the chance that she’d be perceived as anything other than a strange rock formation – and peered a little further over the edge.

The jutting outcrop had served as a rudimentary shelter from the wind, and a couple of bandits were still asleep under it. The rest were sitting around a campfire that had almost burnt out, trying to poke the embers in the hopes the flames would rise up again. There were more of them than there had been in the ambush on the clifftop. Kat counted eleven.

“You had breakfast yet, boss?” one of them called out.

With a jolt Kat recognised the man who had essentially thrown Ava from the cliff. He was no longer wearing his helmet, which was tucked away at his feet, but it was undeniably the same person. He had long greasy hair and a beard that hadn’t been trimmed in months. “Not yet. Been checking on my brother. Good thing they had medical supplies on them.”

“Well, you’ll want to grab one of these ration packs before they’re gone.”

Kat’s fingers reflexively curled around a loose stone. _That’s_ our _food._ She longed to throw it at them, but common sense prevailed and she dropped the rock. The leader rose from his seat with a grunt and accepted a parcel. “How long’s all this gonna last us?”

“A while yet. This is good stuff. Best haul we’ve had in a long time.”

“Yeah, well,” the leader growled, “remember what it cost us.”

“I dunno why you didn’t just let us kill them all,” someone said. “I would’ve.”

“I told you before. Killin’ leaves a bad taste in my mouth.”

 _Except you tried to throw Ava to her death,_ Kat thought.

“You’ve gone soft, Emon,” a voice said tauntingly.

Emon jumped up from the ground, sword in his hands. “Who said that?”

A Shek man rose to his feet. “I did. Ever since your damn woman got that baby in her belly, you ain’t been the same.”

The two bandits glared at each other unyieldingly. Kat took advantage of the distraction to lift herself up and scan the camp. The bags, where were the bags? After a few desperate seconds of searching she caught sight of them, lying in a heap near some rocks at the side of the camp. The backpacks lay open, their contents lay scattered across the ground. A man was sitting next to them, though his eyes were fixed on the unfolding drama.

It was now or never. Kat sprang to her feet and darted around the side of the cliff, down the path to where the backpacks lay. Half the bandit camp seemed to have their swords drawn, and the tension between Emon and the Shek was reaching a climax. If neither backed down, there was going to be a fight.

The sounds of clashing cleavers resounded in the air before Kat was even halfway to the bags. She broke cover, sprinting across the open ground to a boulder. Nobody saw her move. They were too engrossed in the fight, with a few having picked a side and waded in.

“This is ridiculous, Emon! Stop it!” It came to Kat’s attention that there was a woman in the bandit camp, though Kat had not immediately recognised her as such. Her hair was cut short in a choppy style, and she was wearing long, loose rags over her pregnancy. “Emon!”

Emon, engaged in fierce combat with the Shek, didn’t appear to have heard her. Kat inched out from behind the boulder. The bags were close enough that she could almost reach out and touch them. Could she do it without the man noticing? She could only hope that if she was able to grab one, it would still have at least some useful supplies inside.

But just as she was about to try, the man turned his head towards her. Kat hurriedly retreated, her heart thumping. The man sneezed, wiped his face on the back of his hand, and glanced suspiciously at the boulder. After a few moments, he turned back to the fight and shouted, “Get him, Emon!”

“Don’t encourage him!” The woman hurried forward, her hand on her belly. “Emon!”

Kat stretched out her hand, shuffled forward slightly, stretched again. Her fingertips brushed the calico of the nearest bag. She noticed there were two waterskins still inside, as well as one of the sleeping bags. It wasn’t much, but with the man sitting where he was and the sheer difficulty of trying to carry more than one backpack at a time, it was going to have to do.

“Right,” she muttered to herself, and gave the backpack a tug.

It was at this moment that Kat realised her mistake. The man had been sitting on one of the loose straps, and as she pulled, the backpack went flying. Had she tried to ease the bag free, he might not have noticed, but he certainly noticed the sudden movement underneath him. He spun around with a yell. “Hey! Stop right there!”

In one swift movement Kat grabbed the bag, slung one of the straps over her shoulder, and ran. The man gave chase. Behind her, Kat heard the sounds of the fighting die away. “It’s the little Scorchlander bitch from yesterday! She’s taking our stuff!”

Still running, Kat pulled the second strap over her other shoulder so she was better weighted. The hurrying footsteps were fast catching up, and panic gripped her. She couldn’t lead them back to Ava and Ruka… she was going to have to run in a different direction…

_Think, Kat. What advantages do you have over them?_

She scrambled up a rocky face, fingers sweating a little as she clung to various handholds. Years of dust had blown into some of the crevices, and her boots slid at several points. She pressed on grimly, clutching at shrubs and sticking-out chunks of rock, and tried to ignore the cramping in her toes.

“Grab her!” a voice yelled.

A hand clasped around Kat’s ankle, dragging her backwards and nearly smashing her face-first into the rock. She tried to shake it off, but the man’s grasp was too firm. She wedged her hand and elbow into a tight gap, her free hand grabbing at loose stones, and threw them at him. Several connected, and the man let go with a roar of pain.

But Kat’s attempt to defend herself had given her pursuers an idea. Whilst a few were trying and failing to climb the rock, others had decided instead to employ her method and were throwing stones at her in the hopes she’d be dislodged. A few hit her backpack, and that was enough to spark her back into action. She reached up for more handholds, and a stone struck her on the knuckles. “Watch where you’re throwing those!” she snapped. “You could hurt someone with them!”

“So you think you’re funny, do you? You won’t be laughing when we’ve caught you,” someone said threateningly.

Kat tried to think of a witty comeback, but her mind had switched into full survival mode. She pulled her leg up into the tight crevice where her arm had been, and seized a handful of grasses with her bruised hand. Her fingers didn’t quite want to work, and she could feel the tendons in her knuckles screaming at her. “Shit.”

“Someone go round from the other side, see if there’s a way up that’s less steep!”

Kat’s hand scrabbled for the top of the rock face, but it was still too far away, and she was fast running out of ledges to use. She glanced down; she was about twelve feet up, and quite aside from the men waiting for her at the bottom, it would be a painful fall.

“Are you stuck, little sneak-thief? Maybe you should throw down that bag. It’s only weighing you down.”

“Sneak-thief? This is _our_ stuff, you lowlife,” Kat snarled.

The one thing she knew she couldn’t do was allow herself to be caught between the bandits. If the men found another way up… She hissed through her teeth, her arm muscles straining as she pulled herself towards the top of the cliff. _I’m not going to make it._

Kat knew the only way she was going to get to safe ground was if she took a risk. She licked her lips and sprang for the next ledge up, her fingers closing around something she could barely hold onto.

Her grip slid in her own nervous sweat. For a horrible cold-blooded second she thought she’d tempted fate too much, but then her foot set itself firmly on the handhold she’d previously been using. More rocks were lobbed at her, bouncing off her legs. She yelped, her fingernails scratching at the dirt of the clifftop, and pushed off her new foothold.

Kat’s bag unbalanced as her as she landed, belly-down, on the edge of the cliff. She grunted, kicking out for momentum, and wriggled like a worm until she was in a place where she was able to stand up. As she did so, one of the waterskins fell out of her bag. Before she could catch it, the waterskin had bumped over the edge of the cliff. “ _Fuck_!”

Even if she’d been able to retrieve it, there was no time. She heard shouts from the bandits, who had discovered an alternate route up, and ran. Her bag was still undone, but the unsecured flap offered the contents some protection from all the jostling, and as she ran, she did not feel or hear anything else fall out. She hoped it would stay that way.

“Where the fuck did she go?” someone yelled.

Kat took cover behind more rocks, her feet skidding as she ran downhill. Using a nearby tree trunk to pull herself around a particularly rocky patch, she came to a breathless halt at the base of the cliff where Ava had fallen. She was about to keep moving when the glint of something in the sun caught her eye. She heaved a pile of fallen stones and dirt to reveal what had been shining, and pulled out Ava’s katana. It had a nasty dent in it, but the blade was still reasonably straight. She grabbed it and hurried back to the boulders where she’d left Ava and Ruka.

“Kat! Where the fuck have you been?” Ruka said as Kat arrived, sweaty and breathless. Wordlessly Kat pulled off the backpack and dropped it to the floor. Ruka stared at it, then at Kat, then at the bag again. “Kat, I thought we said…”

“I know. I’m sorry. But I got some of our stuff back.”

“Kat, what if they followed you?” Ava shushed her. Ruka lowered her voice to a whisper. “That was the stupidest, most reckless thing…”

“They didn’t follow me.”

“… that anyone who is not me has ever done.”

“I’m sorry,” Kat said again.

“You hurt?”

“No, not seriously. They threw a couple of stones at me, that’s all.”

Ruka knelt to inspect the contents of the backpack. Kat decided not to tell her that she’d lost one of the waterskins. “I don’t know what’s in there apart from a sleeping bag and maybe some water. Didn’t really have time to check.”

Ruka opened the waterskin and sniffed it. Her expression became one of slight shame. “If you want the bad news, we still don’t have water.”

“I’ve got some slightly better news.” Kat held out the katana to Ava. “I think this is yours.”

“Hell, I can’t fight with that,” Ava mumbled. “You’d better keep hold of it. Take the scabbard off my belt.”

With some help from Ava, Kat strapped the sword to her side. She’d always carried a weapon around the swamps, but it had been a blunt iron club, rather than a katana. The katana was about the same weight as her old club, but the balance was different, and Kat hadn’t walked around with a weapon on her belt for a long time. The scabbard bashed against her thigh as she walked.

“You’ll want to secure that better,” Ava said. “I busted it up when I fell.”

Ruka, still searching through the bag, had found the rope Ava had used to tie her up with in the desert. She sawed an end off on the blade of her sword and handed the fragment to Kat. “Here, try that.”

“What else is in there?” Kat asked as she wound the piece of rope around the scabbard and secured it more firmly to the belt.

“Not a lot.” Ruka took a swig from the waterskin when Ava wasn’t looking. “Sleeping bag, which will be useful. A bit of money, not much, but better than what we had before, which was nothing. Bottle of something that must have fallen out of a first-aid kit – hey Ava, do you know what this is?”

She passed the bottle to Ava, who inspected it for only the briefest of seconds before handing it back. “It’s a compound used for cleaning out wounds.”

“Excellent.” Kat snatched it before Ruka could. “We should probably see to Ruka’s.”

“You’ll have to do it,” said Ava. “Quite aside from anything else, I can’t see properly now my goggles are broken.”

“Nobody needs to do it,” Ruka said. “I’m fine. Don’t waste it.”

“Uh, remember the last time you got hurt?” Kat asked. “Coz I _definitely_ do.”

Ruka rolled her eyes, but allowed Kat to lift the bandage on her shoulder and dab a little of the disinfectant inside. The wound was healing well and the bone plate was fusing properly around it. Ruka still grimaced as the disinfectant was splashed in.

“OK,” Kat said as she re-tied the bandage, “we should do the cuts as well.”

“They’re _tiny_.”

“Some of these are as long as my finger,” Kat pointed out.

“You have small hands.” Ruka extended her arms with a sigh. “Fine, go nuts.”

“If you don’t mind me saying,” Ava said from the boulder as Kat disinfected Ruka’s fresher injuries, “you seem to be doing a good job. You’re definitely on the path to becoming a medic.”

“Has she shown you what Goren gave her?” Ruka said.

“Goren?” Ava asked.

“Oh, yeah. When I went to Sho-Battai to find a doctor, I brought back Goren. He gave me this as he was leaving again.” Kat pulled off the medallion and passed it to Ava. “It used to belong to the Queen of the Shek,” she added proudly.

Ava glanced at Ruka for confirmation, then back at the medallion, turning the engraved metal disc over in her fingers. “Wow. Um, why did he give this to you?”

“He wanted to encourage me to be a doctor.”

“That’s so thoughtful.” Ava gave it back to Kat. “Just don’t let the Holy Nation see you with that.”

“I won’t,” Kat said, tucking the medallion under her shirt.

Ava was trying to stand up. Ruka grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “Thanks. I think we should start moving again.”

“Are you sure?” said Kat doubtfully.

“Aside from anything else, those bandits are probably going to come looking for us. At the very least, let’s try and get to the edge of the Spine Canyon.”

Getting out of the Spine Canyon, however, shaped up to be a challenge. Ruka was grimly pressing forward, but Ava struggled with even the slightest of hills, her hand pressed to her side. Even when Ruka carried her, the jolting movement caused her to gasp. Kat kept her hand on the katana, terrified that a pack of bandits, or skimmers, or bonedogs was lurking just around the corner. After a while they came to a stop, finding a small cave-like alcove in one of the rocks, and rested whilst the sun beamed down.

“This is hopeless,” Ava mumbled.

“Don’t talk like that,” Ruka said roughly. “We’ll get out of here.”

“Ruka, I can hardly walk, and you’re not much better off.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Ava leant against the side of the alcove and closed her eyes. Ruka drank more sake. Seeing Kat’s raised eyebrows, she said, “Look, the only way I’m walking out of this place is if I’m a little bit drunk.”

Kat wasn’t sure she could honestly blame her. “You think we’re going to survive the Skimsands?”

“Let’s hope,” said Ruka. “Let’s hope.”

 

* * *

 

It had been a day and a night since the paladins had broken Marisa’s leg, and whilst she and Ceras had managed to fix it up well enough for her to walk on, it was something of a botch job. Whenever she took a step, Ceras could hear loose cogs moving inside the casing, and no amount of prodding and poking had unearthed the origin of the noise.

They’d kept a low profile on the Skimsands, trying not to attract the attention of anyone or anything unsavoury. It was easier said than done, and Kuto occasionally had to run off to fight something that came too close. It was usually a coin toss whether the thing that was interested in them attacked or simply ran away from the loud, screaming Shek. There had been a few times when Ceras had had to run in and help, to a large amount of grumbling and insults from Kuto.

“So what do we do?” Marisa asked for the fifth time in as many minutes. Her voice was growing increasingly impatient, probably because Ceras was more interested in picking at a sunburnt patch on his arm than replying to her. “Also stop peeling that. It’s disgusting.”

“Look, if you want me honest opinion, we should go back to Bark.”

“Go back to Bark empty-handed? Are you _serious_? Lady Sanda _paid_ me with this leg, and…”

“And it’s pretty busted up, you realise that?”

“It’s all I have!” Marisa shouted. “Unlike _some_ people, I don’t have the luxury of a flesh-and-blood leg, because…” She turned away, wiping surreptitiously at her eyes. “I hate that I have to rely on this damn thing even more than I hate having to rely on you two idiots to help me get this job done.”

“Hey, we’re not idiots.”

Marisa shot Ceras a withering glance, then pointed at Kuto, who was wildly swinging his sabre at a buzzing fly. “Begone, insect!”

“OK,” Ceras conceded, “ _he_ is.”

“You both are,” Marisa said flatly. She stared down at her robot limb with hatred. “You know, you never realise just how much you take things for granted until they’re gone.”

“Does this apply to me and Kuto?” Ceras said hopefully.

“I’m starting to take your stupidity for granted, that’s for sure.” She scowled at him. “Why can’t you ever have a serious conversation? Why is everything you say so _infuriating_?”

“If you’re trying to initiate a conversation about how sad you are because you only have one leg, I have news for you. You’re not the only person in the world who’s lost things, and if you think you’re damn special – ”

Marisa shoved Ceras in the chest. He stumbled backwards, tripping over a rock, and fell into the sand. “Oh, and you think _you’re_ hard done by because your fellow mercenaries abandoned you for being a drunkard?”

“So we’re playing this game, are we?” Ceras seethed, getting to his feet. He advanced on Marisa, and she backed away. “My wife, my daughter, my fucking house was taken from me! If you don’t think that’s like losing a limb, maybe you should try walking in _my_ shoes! How did you lose that leg, anyway? Bullying a peasant who fought back? You work for Lady Sanda, you deserve every ounce of pain that you _get_.”

“Stay away from me!” Marisa yelled.

Ceras stopped. Marisa was hugging herself, even though the day was hot. To his surprise, there were tears in her eyes.

“I didn’t know about your family,” she said. “You can’t hold that over me.”

They stood and stared at one another. The wind lifted Marisa’s hair, blowing it across her face. Ceras felt the sun burning at his neck, but resisted the urge to readjust his collar.

“Hey, flatskins!” Kuto called in the distance. “I am victorious!”

“Oh, boy,” Marisa muttered. The corner of her mouth twitched. “Yeah, maybe he is.”

“Is what?”

“An idiot. Look. I’m sorry. I guess I didn’t really think much about stuff – and you did mention your wife and your strange acts of love on the sand.”

“I _told_ you, that’s not what a picnic is!”

“OK, well, no matter what, I’m sorry. Now, that’s your cue to apologise to me too.”

“I’m sorry for some of what I said. But I’m not retracting my statement about how you probably lost your leg.”

“Well,” Marisa said after a silence, “you were right about that one anyway. Except Lady Sanda wanted his head on her wall.” She spread her hands at Ceras’s look of disgust. “Maybe you can afford to be principled. But when your alternative is being alone and hungry in this world, you take the damn scraps the nobles give you. And for me, that involved guarding Lady Sanda while she picked off random drifters. Just bad luck for us that he had friends.” She hesitated. “If you don’t mind me asking. Your wife and daughter, what…”

“A noble.”

“Oh, OK. Well, if you ever want to talk?”

“Just because I’ve apologised,” Ceras said warningly, “it doesn’t mean I like or want to talk to you.”

Marisa shrugged. “Fine.”

“How long are you two going to stand there with your gums flapping?” Kuto yelled. “I’m bored. Let’s kill things.”

“The idiot has a point,” Marisa said. “Let’s go.”

The three of them walked together against the sands, Marisa cursing under her breath every time her leg jammed up. Ceras tried to think of something to say that wouldn’t annoy either of them, but his mind drew blanks. Finally he said, “If we catch them…”

“ _If_ we catch them,” Marisa muttered.

“… what are you gonna do with the money?”

“I don’t care for the money,” Kuto said. “This is a matter of restoring lost honour. I refuse to bow to that hornless warrior. Soon enough she will know the wrath and might of a _true_ Shek warrior.”

“Yeah, yeah, you’re still sore about your horn, I get it. Myself, I want to go and retire to Clownsteady.”

“Why would you want to go to _Clownsteady_?” Marisa said. “It’s a dump.”

“It ain’t a dump!”

“Have you any idea how much sewage is in that river? The whole place is a cesspool.”

“And the area’s full of dishonoured Shek,” Kuto muttered contemptuously. “Hornless ones are required to give up the blade, yet they break the sacred warrior laws of the Shek. It makes me want to defeat that arrogant retainer even more.”

“Arrogant retainer?” Ceras said.

“The hornless woman!”

“Oh, yeah, right. Her. Y’know, you’re kind of obsessed with her. Is this how the Shek deal with their crushes?”

“How _dare_ you insinuate that I, as a proud warrior of my people, have a… a _crush_?” Kuto boomed. “The only thing I will be crushing, flatskin, is her lowly, hornless skull under my boot!”

“Um, I’m going to stop you right there,” Marisa said. “We only get half the bounty money if she’s dead.”

“As I have said, flatskin, I do not care for the money.”

“Well, _we_ kind of do,” Ceras put in.

“Typical honourless flatskins. You care not for the honour of the kill, you care only for the clinking of the coin.”

“So,” Ceras said to Marisa as Kuto lapsed into sullen silence, “what’re you doing with your cut?”

“I’m going back to my lady.”

“ _Your lady_ ,” Ceras taunted. “You’re gonna be as rich as she is when we’re done here. Four wanted criminals at thirty thousand cats a pop, that’s… uh, that’s…”

“Forty thousand cats each,” Marisa said. “Yeah, I know. It might be a nice lump sum, but it’s not enough to keep me going for more than a few months. I’d prefer to be in meaningful employment.”

“Well, there’s the slaves as well. They might be worth like, five hundred cats apiece.”

“Five hundred cats is next to nothing.”

“Maybe not to _you_.”

Ceras gazed thoughtfully into the middle distance, a half smile on his face. “Imagine that kind of bounty though. We’ll gain the respect of the Emperor himself for delivering his enemies to his prison.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t get ahead of yourself,” Marisa said. “We have to find them first.”

“So why are we walking away from Okran’s Shield? I thought you decided that’d be the best place to wait for them.”

“Has it escaped your notice that the Okranites really, _really_ don’t like my leg?” Marisa said tightly. “I think we should go to the Spine Canyon and find a good hill to keep watch from. That way we’ll be see all the movement for miles.”

“If the dust storms don’t blow in,” Ceras remarked.

“OK, smart guy. Do _you_ have a better plan?”

They stopped walking. The wind blew gently and made swirling patterns in the dust. Off in the distance, the Spine Canyon was barely visible through a shimmering haze. “No,” Ceras admitted.

“Well, in _that_ case.” Marisa shaded her eyes with her hand, peering at the Spine Canyon. “I can see movement.”

“Skimmers?” Kuto said hopefully. “I have yet to bring back an intact beak for a trophy.”

“No, not skimmers. People. Quite a few of them, from the looks of things.”

“Just what we need,” Ceras grumbled, “a bunch of damn bandits.”

“I think they’re samurai.”

“Just what we need, a bunch of damn samurai.”

The samurai came closer. The one at the front held up his hand as a signal for them to stay where they were. Ceras sighed and patted his pockets. “Well, this is probably going to be expensive. I hope we have enough money for a bribe…”


	8. Forces

The weighting of the slaver’s club was slightly unbalanced, with too much favour towards the far end. That, together with the fact Rei only needed to hold it in one hand, made it feel odd. She flexed her wrist, swinging the handle, trying to get a better feel for the way it moved. As soon as her arm was out of its sling, she would be back to using her trusty fragment axe, but she supposed it was always good to train up with a sidearm.

It was a cool day, the mountain breeze fresh against Rei’s skin. She could scarcely believe that just twenty-four hours previously, they had been under attack from cannibals. She still felt sore, and now she was able to pay attention to her head she could tell it was aching, but she’d had a chance to rehydrate and was feeling far better than she had done the day before.

 _I can’t believe we made it_.

Not all of them, though, as she had repeatedly reminded herself. Rei said the names over in her head, determined not to let them slip away as easily as the people they’d belonged to had done. Bland. Hanbu. Mag. Jumper. Trepp. There had been more; a Shek, the other Hiver, the Scorchlander. She swung out with the club, smacking it into a nearby tree. The impact shook the branches high above her head. Carp. Gills. Twitch. She hadn’t known those names at the time; she’d learnt them from Lekko later. _Some leader I was, when I didn’t even know who I was leading._

The survivors Rei had brought to World’s End were sitting on the ground outside the University building. They looked tired, huddled and miserable, yet hopeful. Spade was half asleep on Jared’s shoulder, her good hand tracing patterns in the dirt. Lekko was picking at a bowl of _gohan_ , humming tuneless fragments of song Rei didn’t recognise.

“Anyone want to train?” Rei said.

“Definitely not,” Lekko said through a mouthful of rice.

“But what are you going to do when it’s time to move on?”

“You think we’re moving on?” asked Lekko. “This was the end of our journey, it always was. Where do you think we’re going to go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Look, Rei, we really appreciate what you’ve done for us. And I understand it really can’t have been an easy thing. But, we’re here, we’re safe, we’re protected by the guards. The United Cities isn’t going to come looking for us here. We just want to rest and recover.”

Rei stared down at the club in her hand. “Right.”

“You should rest too,” Lekko said.

“I can’t. My friends are out there, they could be in trouble. I want to find them eventually, go to the Hub.”

“Are you crazy?” Lekko said bluntly. “Have you forgotten a little thing called _Holy Nation lands_ stretches between here and there? You’re a Shek, you can’t walk through Okranite territory. It’d be suicide.”

“She’s right,” Jared put in. “I wouldn’t go there.”

“So what am I supposed to do now? Just… sit around, eat food, and wait for the money to dry up?”

“I don’t know. But, Rei, you should leave it. We don’t want or need to be toughened up, not when we’re barely holding together as it is. We don’t want to fight anymore. We’re tired.”

Rei glanced at the twins for help, but they were nodding in agreement with Lekko. She sighed, strapping the club to her belt, and strode off up the ramp to the Machinists’ headquarters. “I’m going inside.”

It was far warmer in the building than it had been outside. As she reached the second storey Rei was confronted with a wave of heat. It took her a few seconds to recover, which was when she noticed a metal sphere on a workbench in the centre of the room. Finch was welding the two halves of the sphere, while a number of Machinists scurried around trying to find things as he called for them. Iyo was staying out the way, perhaps wisely, as he was made of metal.

“What’s going on?” Rei asked him.

“Trying to replicate some old-world technology. You wouldn’t understand it.”

Rei had a feeling Iyo was right. “What does it do?”

“Do? It’s the core for a highly advanced intelligence. We’ve only ever found these in ruins, but they’re incredibly valuable to us. If we can make our own, we may be able to reliably replicate technologies that only exist in blueprints.”

“Oh… OK.” Iyo was _definitely_ right. Rei watched as Finch finished welding the sphere together. He put the welding tools down, demanded a pair of tweezers from a passing Machinist, and started fiddling with a number of small copper wires on the table next to the sphere. “That thing doesn’t look very safe.”

“He knows what he’s doing,” Iyo said. “I hope.”

“OK, I’ve connected everything,” Finch called. “Someone activate it.”

A second later there came a loud bang from the centre of the room, followed by a billowing cloud of acrid smoke. Rei doubled up coughing, her lungs burning and the stink of fumes clinging to her nostrils.

“Finch? Finch!” Iyo ran into the smoke.

Rei stumbled down the ramp, her eyes streaming, carried along with a tide of fleeing Machinists. Half a minute later, Iyo also emerged, the hacking, retching scientist draped over his shoulder. “Well, it looks like we’re going to have to put a pin in that one. At least until the smoke has cleared.”

He set Finch down on the ground. Finch staggered to the door and noisily breathed in air. “You know, there are times when I am very glad I lack the fleshy sacks known as _lungs_.”

Rei hadn’t inhaled anywhere near as much smoke as Finch had, but her head was still spinning. The smoke was beginning to fill the ground floor as well, turning the world into a grey haze.

“Everyone out,” Iyo ordered.

“What on earth is going on?” Lekko said in bewilderment as Rei and the Machinists evacuated outside.

“I’m guessing Finch blew something up,” Spade observed, seeing the state the Hiver was in.

“I did _not_!” Finch was trying to wipe his sooty goggles on his equally sooty trousers. “It blew _itself_ up!”

“ _Right_.”

Iyo put a metal hand on Finch’s arm. “Are you OK?”

“I’m fine…”

Rei watched in surprise. The pairing might have been dysfunctional, but they did seem to care about each other. Meanwhile the smoke had begun to filter outside, and the former slaves were wrinkling their noses and trying to wave the noxious fumes away.

“Was anything in there that we really shouldn’t breathe in?” asked Spade.

“No,” said Finch, a little too quickly.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Iyo said. “It’ll be fine.”

“Easy for _you_ to say, Iyo,” Jared remarked.

It was some time before the smoke had cleared enough for them to be able to go back in, though the unpleasant smell lingered. Finch ran to the smouldering core as if it was a fallen friend and looked at it despairingly. “All that work in ruins.”

“Next time,” Iyo said, “you may want to take my suggestion and do it outside.”

“Yeah, yeah, _I told you so_ and all that.”

“I didn’t say _I told you so_ , but now I come to think of it…”

They were back to bickering. Rei watched as Finch bad-temperedly ordered the Machinists to find new parts to replace the ones that had blown up. After being snapped at one too many times, Iyo retreated downstairs. Rei, who was under the impression that she was annoying Finch with her very presence, followed him.

The ground floor was a communal space away from the workbenches, with a number of tables and a bookshelf. Rei sat at the table next to a half-eaten sandwich and a heap of wingnuts that someone had been arranging in size order. She started piling each size nut up into towers as Iyo sat at the other end of the table, turning them at right angles to each other so they stacked properly. “Are there a lot of explosions here?”

“More than I would like,” Iyo replied. “Mr Finch is notorious for ignoring safety protocols. Honestly, I am quite surprised his organic form is still in one piece.”

“Must be exciting.”

“ _Not_ when he blew a hole in the wall last month,” Iyo said. “It took us ages to fix it. I also do not particularly cherish the thought of having to explain fatalities to people’s families.”

“ _Have_ there been fatalities?”

“There were a few slightly severed limbs, if I recall, but we’ve had no fatalities so far.”

“Only _slightly_ severed?”

“Well, as you know, it is an honour for an organic to have a Skeleton limb.”

“Right,” said Rei, who was pretty certain she didn’t know. “By the way, I was wondering if you had any books I could borrow?”

“Hmm, yes, we do indeed. The place is full of them. Might I recommend a thesis on mass extinction? Mr Finch wrote the first one. He would undoubtedly warm to you if you were to read it.”

“Um. Anything a little lighter than that?”

“Typical drifters, not interested in science,” Iyo muttered, but he disappeared off to find something. He came back a minute later with a pile of roughly stitched together papers in his hand. “Try this one. It’s about different legends from across the continent.”

Rei took it and flicked through. It was handwritten, presumably by several different individuals, and she had a hard time deciphering some of the spidery scrawl. “Legend of the… headless ancient?”

“Oh yes,” Iyo said, “Mr Finch had strong words about that one.”

“A myth started by yet another crazy adventurer,” Rei read, struggling over the appalling handwriting. “Let’s put this one to rest and concentrate our efforts elsewhere, not on rambling myths. Finch.”

“That was about the time he decided he was fed up with the Tech Hunters,” Iyo said.

Rei closed the book. “He sounds like he’s fed up with everything.”

“It wouldn’t be far from the truth.” Iyo folded his hands on the table. “Tell me, boy. What do you know of Hivers?”

Rei thought. She’d been raised in a group of wandering Shek mercenaries, none of whom had been Hivers. They’d always said that the bugmen were dishonest and should be avoided at all times, but she had the feeling Iyo wouldn’t like that answer. “Not a lot, really.”

“You have a United Cities accent. Spent a lot of time in Heft, have you? I suppose you’ll have been exposed to your fair share of anti-Hiver sentiment… still. Hivers are a collective. In their natural state they live in colonies headed by a queen, each fulfilling the role the queen births them for. A worker drone, or a soldier drone, or in Mr Finch’s case, a Hiver prince. They have no names, no personality, no gender. They think as one. In the event that a Hiver is defective, or doesn’t quite take to the colony brainwashing…” Iyo snapped his fingers with a clunk. “They are permanently separated from the hive. Most of them die or go completely mad from the pheromone withdrawals. The ones who survive, well, they’re a little odd, to say the least. I’ve never met a Hiver who ever quite got over what they lost.”

“What about the Hiver caravans?” Rei said, distantly remembering Kat telling her how she’d encountered one. She’d said the caravan had weirded her out, with the Hivers all seeming to know what the others had been going to say.

“They’re a special case. They are apart from the hive, but they are still part of the hive. They tend to be a little more individual than normal Hivers. Some even give themselves names. But they still answer to the queen.”

“Right. So Finch…”

“They exiled him. I wouldn’t ask him about it unless you want him to yell at you.”

“I wasn’t planning on it,” Rei said.

“Don’t tell him I told you any of this either, or he’ll yell at _me_. And he always seems to know how to shout at the most jarring frequency. It sends my circuits haywire.”

“I won’t.”

“Good. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some things to do.”

Iyo left. Rei went back to her book, absently turning the pages. Someone had pencilled illustrations into the margins. An image of a rotting Shek corpse covered with what looked like insect legs grimaced at her from the page. Underneath was the descriptor, _The parasite which embeds itself in the bony matter of a Shek’s body may have given rise to the legend known as the Grievewraith_. Rei shuddered and went to return the book to its shelf.

“You doing OK?” Lekko asked from behind her, and she jumped, nearly dropping the book. “Sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you.”

“It’s fine.” Her twitchiness wasn’t quite as severe as it had once been, but the unexpectedness had still sent Rei’s heart racing. She reached down, picked up the book and slid it back on the shelf. “Hi.”

“I thought I’d come and check on you, see how you were. Guess it must be kind of weird for you, now you’ve done what you said you were going to do. Should we sit down?”

Rei stared at her. “Sure.”

“Nice towers,” Lekko commented as they pulled up seats.

“These? Oh, yeah.” Rei fiddled with the neat stacks of wingnuts. “Thought they needed arranging.” She paused. “Is there something specific you wanted to talk to me about?”

“I’m mostly wondering what your plans are. Are you still set on going to the Hub to try and meet your friends?”

Rei sighed. “I don’t know. I really don’t know what happens now. I never planned beyond getting to World’s End. I guess… nobody really needs me now, if they ever did in the first place.”

“Oh, I don’t know about that,” Lekko said.

Rei picked up one of the wingnuts and poked her little finger through the hole, spinning it. “This is the first time in months I haven’t had a goal. When I was enslaved, my goal was to survive. When I was rescued, it was to get revenge. And when I left the slave camp for the last time, it was to try and help people. But now everything’s done and it feels sort of underwhelming, like I didn’t really achieve much.”

“Well, you _did_ kill Lord Haga,” Lekko pointed out.

“I did. But it wasn’t all I was expecting it to be. It just felt… flat. And he’s still there, in my mind. I killed his body, but not the _idea_ of him.” She blushed, sure that her words sounded stupid, but Lekko was nodding thoughtfully.

“If it helps, I think we’re all feeling a bit of a loss of purpose right now. Maybe not quite so much Spade and Jared – when Spade heals they’ll probably go right back to the tech hunting. But me? I can’t do much beyond staying here, at least until I stop looking so much like a slave.”

“At least your hair will grow back. Our horns won’t. We’ll spend the rest of our lives being treated as second-class citizens by other Shek – and maybe as escaped slaves, too.”

“That must be rough. I’m sorry.”

Rei flicked at the tallest of the towers. The wingnuts came down with a clatter. A few spilled onto the floor. “It’s fine. Hey, can I ask you a personal question? If you don’t mind me asking?”

“Shoot.”

“What was the thing that kept _you_ going? If there was anything?”

For a long while Lekko did not reply. Finally she said, “My husband.”

“You were _married_?”

“It is a thing people do,” Lekko said solemnly.

“Oh no, I didn’t mean it like that. I just didn’t know. Was he a slave too?”

“Not to my knowledge. We were drifters, we used to travel many places. Once spent two months in Vain living among the Hive. Then we made the mistake of going east, which was where they took me. Got sold to the Traders Guild…” She rubbed at the brand on her neck. “Then bought and sold across the United Cities like a pack garru for two years until I ended up in the stone camp.” Wiping her eyes, she added, “I never thanked you for freeing me.”

“Well, you sort of have now.”

Lekko smiled faintly. “We didn’t really get off on the right foot, did we?”

“I guess not.” Rei longed to ask about the skimmers, but instinct told her to leave it. “You know, if we go our separate ways and all that, I hope you find your husband.”

“And I hope you find peace, Rei. I think you deserve it after everything that’s happened.”

She got up and went upstairs. Rei retrieved the wingnuts from the floor and resumed her tower building. But the stacks wouldn’t stay upright, and her hand shook as she tried to place more wingnuts. Eventually she gave up, shoving the remaining towers over, and put her head in her hands.

Peace. Her life before the slave camp, before Lord Haga, felt like nothing more than a faded memory. Sometimes, old snatches of colour and sound and smell would dance across her mind, only to be forgotten again. It had been less than a year ago, and her hazy recollections were troubling to say the least. Was it really so easy to forget a life? She had the strangest suspicion that if she hadn’t met Kat, she might have forgotten her own name as well.

 _I’m not the person I was_ , she thought dully. _I was a wanderer, a fighter. I wasn’t a killer. And now I’m a hornless murderer. Dishonoured._ Did she even still care about living according to the codes? How much of it really mattered, when the most important thing in this harsh world was staying alive?

She wandered outside. Spade and Jared were having a conversation with Iyo on the balcony, but the other two were nowhere in sight. Rei tried to suppress the pang of jealousy she felt, looking at them. They still remembered their old life, they still had something of a purpose, and they had each other. Perhaps it was an unconscious habit stemming from their imprisonment, but they always seemed to stand close together, their arms folded in a slightly defensive stance. The rags they’d worn as slaves had been replaced with proper clothes, which had been hastily modified to accommodate Shek physiology.

“Ah, it’s the leader,” Iyo said on Rei’s approach. “Greetings.”

“That’s bullshit!” Spade snapped.

Rei jumped, but Spade wasn’t referring to her. She was glaring at Iyo, her skinny frame bristling. “You _know_ the stories of what’s in those ruins. All I’m saying is to consider…”

“For the last time, we have a pretence to maintain with the Holy Nation. There is a _reason_ we do not go near Narko’s Trap, and I’m not willing to throw our already uneasy relationship out of the door because you and your brother want to go looting.”

“But…”

“No. There are plenty of other ruins in the world. If you want to go raiding ancient labs and libraries, start with one of them. I forbid this excursion.”

“Oh, come on! My brother and I have risked life and limb for you guys, and half the ruins we’ve been to have turned up empty. Empty, except for the _fucking spiders_! Do you have any idea what blood spider venom does to a person? No, because you’re a damn Skeleton and you’ve never had to deal with the unending _agony_ of having been attacked by one! I was locked inside my own body for _three days_ , the scar still hurts to this day, but you can’t feel pain so I don’t expect you’d understand. And we came back here empty-handed and all your damn bugman friend did was get mad at us for wasting his time!”

Iyo took a step forward, his fists clenched. “Call Mr Finch that again,” he said softly, “and you will regret it.”

“Oh, but you don’t care that the Holy Nation hates his kind and hates yours even more? Why’re you even attempting to keep the peace with them? They go against everything we stand for!”

“In case you hadn’t noticed, Spade,” Iyo said, “World’s End sits right next to Okranite territory. They could easily lay siege to the mountains and we wouldn’t stand a chance. My stance on Narko’s Trap will not change. If you want to remain Tech Hunters, go and find less politically volatile ruins to scavenge from.”

Spade looked to Jared for help. “Are you going to back me up or what?”

“Well…” Jared scratched his neck. “He _does_ kind of have a point…”

Spade glared at her brother. “You fucking traitor.”

“I think this conversation is done.” Iyo strode back inside. Jared groaned as Spade flounced off.

“Maybe you should go after her,” Rei said tentatively.

“And get punched in the face for my troubles? Not likely. She’ll come around, given time. Hey, have you had a chance to look around this place properly? There are a few things you may be interested in seeing.”

“Sure.”

As the pair of them walked down the street, Rei said, “So what was that all about?”

“Oh, yeah. Uh. You ever heard of Narko’s Trap?”

“Not until five minutes ago.”

“Well, there’s an old laboratory there. A place in that location is mentioned in some old records the Tech Hunters found decades ago, together with a complete inventory of what’s in there. Ancient books, AI cores, all sorts of incredibly valuable things we just can’t replicate with our current technological understanding. Unfortunately, and as you might be able to tell by the name, it’s in Holy Nation territory, and it’s under heavy guard.”

“I don’t get it,” Rei said. “Why wouldn’t the Holy Nation just burn the place down?”

“It’s probably crawling with security spiders. Maybe they decided it was easier to wall it off… urgh, don’t ask me what goes through the heads of those Okranites.”

They stopped outside a storm-house next to the bar. Jared opened the door and went in. “It’s OK,” he called to Rei. “It’s a public building, and besides, the Tech Hunters own it. Come on.”

Rei stepped through the door, her eyes widening at the sight of what was inside. She had never seen anything like it. Five low-lying beds, covered in a layer of what looked like a cross between dirt and sand, had been set into the floor. A rig had been set up above each bed, and as Rei watched, she saw a fine mist coming out of the rigs. Growing in the beds themselves were what looked to be greenfruit. “The mist… what is it?”

“Just water.”

Rei put her hand into the mist, feeling the delicious coolness of water droplets on her skin. “Wow. I’ve seen farms before, but I’ve never seen any _indoor_ farms.”

“Yeah, pretty amazing, huh? These are what we call hydroponics. Allows you to grow crops indoors. So Iyo isn’t completely right when he says we wouldn’t be able to survive a siege. We have two of these buildings, after all.” He grinned. “You hungry?”

“A little.”

“Here. Fresh from the grow-beds.” He grabbed one of the greenfruit by its stalk, pulled it from the ground, and split it in half with his hands. “You might want to dust it off before you eat it.”

Rei took the proffered half and inspected the vegetable. It looked like a normal greenfruit. “You grew this in what, sand?”

“Mountain soil. You might have noticed the outdoors isn’t very well suited for crops, but by rigging up the water systems, we can just leave these to grow. How does it taste?”

Rei took a bite of the greenfruit. “That’s _good_.”

“I’m hoping Iyo will get the research written up soon. This kind of farming could be absolutely revolutionary, especially in the desert. Have you seen what those tiny desert outposts survive on? _Chewsticks_ and _dustwiches_. Can a desert-dweller really enjoy their life when all they have to eat is shitty cactuses?”

Rei chuckled. “As someone who’s eaten my fair share of those, I can safely say they definitely can’t.” She finished the greenfruit and smiled awkwardly at Jared, who was looking at her expectantly. “Thanks for showing me. I kind of feel like I’m not in much of a position to appreciate it though… I don’t know a lot about technology.”

“Could have had me fooled.” He winked, then, seeing her blush, quickly backtracked. “Uh, I mean… never mind. Let’s go back. I think I have a wayward sister to console.”

“You still think she’s going to hit you?”

“Hopefully not with that hand.”

A lone bird of prey was circling in the sky above their heads as they wandered back. Rei stared at up at it. She was technically as free as the bird was, but unlike the bird, unlike Spade and Jared, she had no idea what she wanted to do with that freedom. She wished she did.

 _I want to find them eventually, go to the Hub_. Her own words rang in her ears, but there was doubt in them now. Would the others even want anything to do with her after she’d shown her true colours in the slave camp? She’d killed people. She’d seen the look in Kat’s eyes before they’d parted ways. It had been the look of someone who’d realised her friend wasn’t quite the person she’d thought she’d been.

Rei tried to shake those thoughts off before they could properly take root. Going to the Hub was the only clear option that had presented itself to her so far. And without Kat, Ava and Ruka, what else did she have?

 _Just your big sword_ , Lord Haga reminded her, his skull gleaming white, _and your little dog_.

“Shut up,” Rei muttered.

For once, the slave master was silent.

 

* * *

 

“We aren’t going to need bribe money,” Marisa said, tossing her head at the outrageousness of Ceras’s suggestion. The United Cities patrol was coming nearer, the light glinting off their swords and their armour, but she showed no signs of uncertainty. “I work for Lady Sanda.”

“Yeah?” Ceras said. “You think they’re gonna believe you? You didn’t exactly do a good job at convincing those Okranites yesterday.”

Marisa strode confidently forwards as Ceras rolled his eyes. “Greetings.”

“Greetings, travellers.” The man at the front of the group nodded politely at the three of them. “What is your business in these parts? You wouldn’t want to run into those Holy Nation dogs with that leg of yours.”

“No, I suppose not. We’re bounty hunters.”

“Hah! You three fancy yourselves bounty hunters, do you?” The sands rang with derisive laughter. “And I suppose you’re after the most recent bounty? Four dangerous criminals, a bonedog and a bunch of slaves between… the three of you? You must be mighty fine warriors.”

“The best!” Kuto boomed.

“Want to bet on that, bonehead?”

“I work for Lady Sanda,” Marisa said quickly, before Kuto could draw his weapon. “She’s sent us out on her behalf.”

“Hmm. And Emperor Tengu has sent _us_. Now, even if you weren’t lying – ”

“I’m not lying! I’m one of Lady Sanda’s personal guards. Ceras, you have the scroll, right?”

“What? Oh, yeah.” He dug around in his pocket and handed Marisa the creased roll of paper. The samurai leader looked at it in distaste, but reached out a gauntleted hand to take it. He broke the seal, inspecting the contents, and gave it back with a grunt.

“Looks to be in order,” he said grudgingly.

“One of the fugitives, the Okranite, attacked me just before she escaped from Lady Sanda’s house,” Marisa said. “I have a personal reason to want to see her brought in to face justice.”

The leader looked at Marisa searchingly. Finally he shrugged and said, “Well, the more numbers the merrier. So long as you feed yourselves and patch yourselves up, you’re welcome to patrol with us.”

“Is this really…” began one of the other samurai.

The leader rounded on him. “Lady Sanda sent her. We’d be sticking our necks on the line for _not_ allowing her to come with us.”

“Thank you,” Marisa said.

“Hmm. Well. Any funny business, and we’ll drag you to Tengu ourselves.”

“I understand.”

“Well, better keep up.”

“See?” Marisa said to Ceras as they tagged onto the back of the group. “I told you we wouldn’t need bribe money.”

“I wouldn’t say that too loudly if I were you,” Ceras remarked, “not unless you want to lose some of that sweet profit margin.”

“Well. I have a sneaking suspicion we may not be getting as much bounty money as we might have done on our own.”

“So why are we walking with them?”

“Because I care more about keeping Lady Sanda happy than about the money,” Marisa replied.

“Fucking hell, you’re worse than the Shek.”

Ceras had noticed that they were walking east rather than west. He quickened his pace so he could talk to the samurai in front. “This is taking us back towards the Spine Canyon. Is there a reason for…”

“We already have patrols on the Skimsands,” the samurai replied, “and given they haven’t seen anyone matching the descriptions that have been sent out, there’s a possibility the fugitives are lying low in the Spine Canyon. That place is filled with impassable terrain and howling dust storms. But if they’re in there, they’ll have to come out sooner or later.”

“What do you think our chances are of finding them?” Ceras said.

The samurai just looked at him. “Typical bounty hunter, desperate to be the one to get the glory and the coin. Catching criminals, especially the worst criminals of the empire, is a team effort. On large-scale operations such as these, it is not about _who_ gets the glory for catching them, it matters only that they are caught. So we are to patrol the area immediately west of the Spine Canyon. If we catch them, that is good for us. But this is not about individual glory or bragging rights.”

“You just said the word _glory_ three times. Are you sure you’re not secretly a Shek?”

“Antagonise me and you will regret it, bounty hunter,” the samurai warned him.

“Oh, he’s an idiot,” Marisa said. “Doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut. I apologise on his behalf.”

“Hmm. Lady Sanda’s woman. Perhaps you should walk at the front with our leader. After all, you represent her.” A pause. “Does… does the bounty hunter speak for her as well?”

“Definitely not. Like I said before, he’s an idiot.”

Ceras scowled as Marisa was invited to the front of the group. Beside him, Kuto was tapping the fingers of his right hand against the handle of the sabre on his back. “I shall reclaim my lost honour. The slight against my dignity shall not be forgotten until she is chained like the lowlife she is.”

“What about the other Shek?” Ceras pointed out. “She doesn’t have horns either.”

“She never fought me. She is low on my list of priorities. You can take that one if you want.”

“Why, thank you.”

When they reached the edge of the Spine Canyon, the patrol group split in two. One half went to set up an ambush on a path a little way north, and the other half – which included the three bounty hunters – formed a checkpoint on a second path.

“So do we just… wait?” Ceras said.

“Maybe some bandits or some skimmers will come near,” Kuto said hopefully. “I would like to hone my technique some more before I battle with the hornless.”

“One-track mind, that man,” Marisa muttered in Ceras’s ear.

“Don’t tell me you only just noticed.”

Marisa and Kuto sat in the shade of a rock, passing a waterskin back and forth. It was an almost companionable silence for a change. As Ceras took a long drink of water, he noticed something in Marisa’s face that he’d never noticed before. Her skin was much darker than Eira’s had been, her hair curlier, but the angle of her jaw and the way her mouth turned up at one corner… “Y’know, you kind of look a bit like my daughter.”

“Is that supposed to be a compliment or something?”

“Well, yeah.”

“Did she take after you? Physically, I mean?”

“I think so,” Ceras said proudly. “Though my wife always disagreed.”

“Great. So you’re saying I look like someone who looked like _you_. I feel so flattered right now.”

“She was nicer than you, though.”

“Yeah, well. You can’t be nice out here in the desert. Doesn’t work.”

“Maybe you’re right. My wife and daughter, they were nice.”

“Your kid, how old was she?”

“Seven. She’d be a woman now. Same age as you.”

“Oh, shit. Look…” Marisa stared out across the Skimsands. “I’m sorry. I actually am. Nobles, they’re not… they’re not like the rest of us.”

“You’ve changed your tune. Thought you were loyal to Lady Sanda.”

“Imagine if I wasn’t. She’d take my leg and have me thrown out of the gates to die. Do you know how they select noble guards?”

“No.”

“Most of us are orphans. They take the kids that show the most promise, train them up, keep them raised in a barracks with no love. The approval of the noble we work for is the only approval we’ve ever had, and that noble house is the only home we’ve ever known. I mean, there are guards out there who were samurai and had a career change, but Lady Sanda always liked to handpick hers from the training barracks. She says it helps her guarantee loyalty – not that it did any of my friends any good.”

“Was this the Okranite?”

“I didn’t tell the samurai the full story,” Marisa said, lowering her voice slightly. “My fellow guards were my friends, for the most part. Some of them were people I grew up alongside and was picked alongside. And then when the little bitch escaped, Lady Sanda… punished them for letting her get away. I think she would have done the same to me if I hadn’t been crippled, but instead she applauded me for trying to stop her. So there’s that. But everyone else…” She shuddered. “Let’s just say they won’t be working for Lady Sanda anymore. When I come back, she’ll have a whole new guard.”

“And she’s really someone you want to spend the rest of your life working for?”

Marisa looked at him levelly. “What other choice do I have?”

Ceras shrugged. For the first time in a long while, he began to feel the twinges of pity for a person other than himself.


	9. Pia

Sometimes, all it took was a sunset.

Rei had seen many sunsets from behind the bars of a cage. Back in those days, the sunset had heralded imminent darkness in more ways than one. Sunset was when the slavers looked over their prisoners and selected one to spend the night in the noble house. Sunset was when you sobbed in relief that you had not been chosen, and hated yourself for being thankful that it was someone else this time. As a flatskin, Kat had never had to go through that, but she had still wept with Rei. Rei wondered if sunsets had been ruined for her, too.

This time, however, felt different. The sun set behind mountains rather than sand dunes, and the dwindling light turned the clouds pink and orange. The air was still, and if she looked up Rei could see the early stars. The breeze smelled of pine and moss and wood-smoke. Scrap’s floppy ears pricked up at the scent of some small prey animal somewhere on the mountainside.

“Let’s go for a walk,” Rei said to him.

With Scrap’s leg as it was, she didn’t want to overexert him, but he seemed happy enough on three legs. They left the University and wandered along what passed for the street, Scrap occasionally marking his territory on the walls of buildings. Though the street was mostly empty, Rei heard livelier sounds from indoors. One of the bars was full of drunken noise from Tech Hunters who’d just returned from an expedition, and Rei caught snatches of boisterous laughter as they passed. One of the Machinists who worked for Finch came out of the bar, holding a brown parcel in his hands. Rei smiled at him, but he didn’t see her. She suspected Finch had sent him on an errand, for… sandwiches? _Makes sense_.

They came to the gates, which were being guarded by Tech Hunters. Rei, who was used to unfriendly guards who constantly pulled people aside for searches, was pleasantly surprised to find herself engaged in casual conversation about the weather, the sunset and the various perils of looting ruins. Scrap seemed to be quite the hit with the guards, who took it in turns to pat him and make sympathetic noises over his injured foreleg. Rei, who’d been dreading the inevitable pitying looks for her shaved horns, couldn’t deny she was relieved at the distraction.

“How _old_ is he?”

“Uh. Somewhere between a puppy and a full-grown dog. I don’t know, exactly.”

“Can I pick him up?”

“I wouldn’t,” Rei cautioned. “His teeth are pretty sharp.” She didn’t mention how she’d once seen Scrap tear off a slaver’s hand. “He’s a good guard dog, though.”

“I bet he is. Oh, you _good_ boy.”

The incessant cooing was beginning to get on Rei’s nerves. She made her excuses and took Scrap a little way down the mountain path, away from other people. She wasn’t sure how safe the mountains were, exactly; she knew there were paladins in the eastern foothills and cannibals in the west, with wild bonedogs possibly lurking on the paths in between. So she sat down on the path just in sight of the guards, and allowed Scrap to patter around and sniff things.

“It’s nice here, isn’t it Scrap? If only Kat and the others were here too. You think we’ll get to see them again?”

Even if Scrap had understood her, he was too busy investigating a rock on the path to pay attention. Rei sighed and hugged her knees. There was something profoundly lonely about knowing your three closest friends were somewhere out in the world, with danger lurking around every corner, and not being able to do anything except hope. She had Lekko, and Iyo, and the twins, but she’d known them for only a fraction of time, and felt close to none of them.

“This is my fault, you know,” she said to the dog. “When we left Bark, we could have quietly found another place to settle down. Lady Sanda would have forgotten about us eventually. But no, what happened? _I_ decided I had to go back.” She picked up the rock and threw it down the path. Scrap gave her a confused look, as if trying to work out whether she expected him to bring it back for her.

“Sorry, Scrap.”

He pricked up his ears again, lifting his nose. Rei got to her feet, trying to see what was in Scrap’s line of sight. But they were right next to a bend in the path, and all that was visible was the rocky cliff of the mountainside. “What is it, boy?”

Scrap cocked his head, listening. Then, before Rei could do anything to stop him, he ran forward and disappeared around the bend. Rei was about to hurry after him when she heard a loud scream nearby. It was a shrill, ear-splitting kind of scream that sent Rei’s skull ringing in protest. “ _Scrap_!”

She hurtled around the corner to find a stand-off taking place. Scrap’s hackles were raised, his teeth bared. Downhill of him was a skinny girl of about sixteen, who was holding a crudely-made iron stick in a defensive stance. Her eyes were mostly whites, and as Scrap snarled, she waved the stick in an ineffectual attempt to scare him. “Stay away!”

“Scrap!”

Hearing the tone of his mistress’s voice, Scrap meekly trotted back to Rei’s side. The girl lowered the iron stick, her hand shaking. “Oh, it’s yours. Thought it was a wild one.”

Rei looked at Scrap’s bandaged leg but said nothing. Maybe it wasn’t fair to assume the girl had been focused on anything other than his teeth.

“I never seen one this close to World’s End before, but y’know, first time for everything. Already had trouble with cannibals on me way. Fucking annoyance they are, but I can outrun ’em. At least until I get to the slopes and then running is the last thing on me mind. I’m telling you, the climb don’t get much easier no matter how many times you do it. Are you with the Tech Hunters? I don’t think I seen you before. Are you a Machinist? I don’t think your dog likes me very much.”

 _Probably because you screamed and waved a stick at him._ Aloud Rei said, “Oh, sometimes he takes a while to warm to new people.”

Scrap, eyeing the girl balefully from between Rei’s legs, didn’t look as though he was going to be warming to her any time soon. Rei forced a smile. “Well, I was about to head back, so you’re welcome to walk with me.”

“Thanks.” The girl fell into step beside Rei. “So do you go looting ruins and stuff? I always wanted to do that. Sounds kind of exciting, don’t you think? Well, I mean dangerous too, but hell, I live in the middle of cannibal country, what can be more dangerous than people trying to drag you away for a meal? And I don’t mean that in the sense of _oh I like this person, let me invite her back and give her something wholesome and home-cooked_ , no I don’t mean that, I mean you’re part of their diet, so to speak. So that’s kind of exciting. Moll keeps telling me I need to learn how to fight, but I ain’t ever seen an enemy I couldn’t outrun. That’s me thing, running.”

“Right.”

“Hey, have you ever met a cannibal? I once saw Moll take one out in one hit with a turret. She’s amazing, I love her. She has all these ninja blades and stuff but the cannibals rarely get close enough for her to need to use ’em. Oh shit, I wasn’t supposed to talk to strangers about Moll. You ain’t got anything to do with the Holy Nation, have you? I mean I guessed not, coz you’re a Shek, not that there’s anything wrong with being a Shek, I’m very open-minded, me. I even talk to the Skeleton sometimes but I don’t think he likes me.”

“Oh, right.” _I wonder why_.

“What happened to your horns? Were you a slave? That’s OK, lots of us were slaves, it’s not a thing to be ashamed of. The lost honour thing is all bullshit anyway but if you wanna cry about it, I’m here for you. Not that people tend to take me up on that, Reva once threatened to feed me to the cannibals coz I asked her if she wanted to talk about her problems. She has big anger issues, you know. Something’s definitely gone wrong when Moll says you’re too angry to kill fuckin’ paladins. Yeah, that’s what we do by the way. Oh shit… I don’t know if I was supposed to tell you that…”

The guards on the gates did not look especially thrilled to see the girl. “Evening, Pia. Go on through.”

“Ooh, are you going to the University?” Pia said to Rei as they walked. “Me too!”

Iyo, who was in the downstairs communal area making notes from a book, was even less enthusiastic than the guards had been. “So you’re back. The human who never stops talking. What has Moll sent you for this time?”

“Books. She says have you got anything on weapons crafting, coz our smith is wanting to get an apprentice just in case she gets carried off by cannibals or something. Also she wants some other books so she can help teach the new recruits to read coz we managed to rescue some of the Rebirth slaves and they can’t read, on account of them bein’ slaves and everything. Well I mean, they weren’t always slaves obviously, but they couldn’t read before that either, so… oh and I think I needed to get some stuff for the turrets.”

“My processing unit can only take in so much information at once,” Iyo said. “If you want ammunition, go to the ranger’s shop. You’re probably too late to get anything now, but you can buy it in the morning when the shop opens again. As for the books you wanted, I shall endeavour to see what I can find.”

“Thanks. Hey, I found a really cool rock on the way up. It looks a bit like a garru. Want to see it?”

“No.” Iyo caught sight of Rei, who was trying not to laugh, and shook his head at her. “Do you want me to find these books for you or not?”

“Oh, yeah. Sorry, I know you’re a busy man… Skeleton… thing. Anyway, I’ll let you find the books. Did you know Moll is teaching me to read? She says maybe it’ll do me some good. I asked her if she had that book about the little boy that got dismembered by Skeletons, I always wanted to read that one, but she said...”

Iyo had disappeared upstairs. Pia shrugged and sat at the table. From the floor above there came a crashing sound, followed by Finch’s voice shouting, “Why can I never trust anyone to get these right? The correct way to make a sandwich is with _thinly sliced_ bread! If I wanted a bread sandwich…”

Finch stomped downstairs, a half-eaten sandwich scrunched in some brown wrappings. “Here, take this,” he said, shoving it into Rei’s hands. “Eat it, or throw it away, or something. I don’t want it anywhere near me. No matter _how_ specific I am with my order, I always end up…” He broke off at the sight of Pia. “Oh, it’s you again.”

“Hi,” Pia said brightly. “Do you want to see the interesting rock I found? It looks like a…”

“I have already seen three of your rocks that you deemed _interesting_ ,” Finch snapped. “I do not care for your pareidolic observations. Unless the rock is a unique geological specimen, it is not _interesting_.”

“Are you having a bad day? I’d be having a bad day too if I was covered in soot. Why are you covered in soot? Did something blow up, or is it a fashion thing? If it’s a fashion thing I must say, it doesn’t quite suit you.”

Scowling, Finch returned to his lab. Rei tried to slink away, but Pia spotted her. “Hey, don’t go! I don’t want to be left alone with the Skeleton and the grumpy bugman. What’s your name? I’m Pia.”

“I’m Rei,” Rei said reluctantly.

“I like that name. There seem to be a lot of Reis around. I’ve never met another Pia. But obviously Rei must be a really good name if lots of people are called that, right? Or nobody would be called that.”

“I guess so.”

“Are you from the Shek Kingdom?”

“No.”

“But you’re Shek.”

“Yeah… not all Shek are from the Shek Kingdom. I’m from the United Cities.”

“Oh, we don’t really like the United Cities. I mean, you know. Enemy of our enemy is our friend and all that, but we don’t like them. The slave-keeping thing. I mean, at least they enslave everyone and not just, you know, women and Shek and bugmen. Well, I think they sometimes send human men to Rebirth. Rebirth’s their big labour camp thing, it’s not too far from our village actually, where they say that if you work really hard you might get reborn as a human man. Reborn as a human man... I can’t think of anything worse, can you?”

“I can.”

“But it’s OK, I don’t hate you for being United Cities.”

“Thanks.”

“Unless you really like Emperor Tengu and he’s a bit of a twat, don’t you think? I mean I’ve never met him, I don’t even really know what he’s like, but if you have a name like Tengu you’re gonna be a twat.”

“Oh, right.”

To Rei’s relief, Iyo was also evidently trying to minimise the amount of time Pia had to spend in the University. He came back down a minute later with a stack of books. “Here, take these. Hope they’re helpful.”

“Thanks! Hey, can I spend the night here?”

“We’ve been through this. As much respect as I have for Moll, her lackeys can sleep in the inn like every other traveller.”

“Oh, come on!”

“ _No_.”

“Fine. Guess I’m spending the night in a _cold, expensive_ bed on the roof of an inn.” Pia trudged away. For a few moments after she had left, there was quiet.

“I don’t know how it’s physically possible for me to have a headache,” Iyo said, “but I think I have one. With her incessant talk… and my associate being more volatile than your average three-year-old...”

“Does she come by often?” asked Rei, biting into Finch’s sandwich.

“More often than I would like. Moll sends her as a messenger and errand-girl. You know, if she sent anyone else I would be happy to let them spend the night here in the University, but Pia’s already gotten on Mr Finch’s last nerve.”

“Who _is_ Moll, anyway?” Rei wanted to know.

“Head of Flotsam. Bunch of former Holy Nation citizens and slaves. Moll seems to be the only one in that mess with her head screwed on. I can respect Moll. The others are still a bunch of damn Okranites, no matter how much they’ve tried to sweeten that cursed religion. And they still hate Skeletons as much as the paladins do.”

“Oh.”

“Still… from what I have heard, they’re loyal allies, if you aren’t a Skeleton.”

Allies… Rei tapped her index finger against her chin, thinking. Flotsam was opposed to the Holy Nation rather than the United Cities, but it wasn’t as though she was ever planning on returning to United Cities territory. And with the Holy Nation’s attitude towards Shek, she’d never be able to seek refuge in their lands. _I don’t have a lot of options_.

“What do you know about Rebirth?” she asked Iyo.

“Hmm. Few good things. I do know it’s swallowed some of our finest Tech Hunters. Hundreds of slaves, mostly women by all accounts, toiling away in a quarry doing pointless work for the paladins, who believe the hard work will save their souls.” Iyo’s voice dripped with contempt. “Yet ask any paladin and he will deny the Holy Nation keeps slaves. Moll helps those who escaped from there.” He settled down and picked up his book again. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do.”

Rei left him to it and went to the bar, Scrap at her heels. The Tech Hunters were still drunkenly laughing and singing inside the one she’d passed earlier. Jared and Spade, who had decided to participate in the merrymaking, called for her to join them, but she politely refused and went to one of the quieter bars where she could hear herself think. The place was mostly empty aside from a couple of older Tech Hunters who were swapping stories of the things they’d found on their travels.

The barkeep frowned at Scrap as Rei entered. “He’d better not cause any trouble.”

“He’ll be good,” Rei promised.

She sat at one of the tables away from the Tech Hunters, her thumb tracing the grooves and contours of her grog cup. Scrap lapped up water from a bowl on the floor. The Tech Hunters murmured in their corner. The distant tones of a rowdy drinking song carried in the evening breeze. Rei leant her elbows on the sticky table, the horns digging into the wooden surface, and tried not to feel alone.

She had a feeling that the slaves she’d helped free wouldn’t want to go to Flotsam with her. Most were from the United Cities, and whilst simple citizens were free to wander the world without much risk of attack, there was still a deep-held contempt for the Okranites across great swathes of the population. Flotsam might not have been part of the Holy Nation, but they were still Okranites. She wondered what their attitude towards Shek was. Pia seemed OK with them, although Rei suspected the others might not be so blithely accepting.

An obvious answer to the problem presented itself a moment later. She drained the grog, grimacing at how watered down it seemed to be, and took Scrap to the bar where the Tech Hunters were enjoying their evening. Scrap shrank away from the noise and light and raucous laughter. Rei left him outside and plunged into the commotion.

The place was even busier than she’d realised. The luckier revellers had found seats at the tables, but the others were forced to get creative or else simply stand. The barkeep was doing a roaring trade in grog, rum and sake, which the thirsty patrons were drinking down like water. People barged and jostled and cheered as someone drunkenly offered to buy a round for everyone.

The noble house had often smelled like the bar did now, of sweat and alcohol. There were too many bodies in proximity to Rei’s, and as people moved she found herself hemmed in. Her head spinning, she pushed her way through to where Spade and Jared were. Spade was sitting on a table, while Jared was perched on the lap of a masculine-looking Greenlander man with enormous forearms.

“Hey,” yelled Spade, “it’s the girl who freed me and my bro! Someone get her a drink!”

“Oh,” Rei said faintly, “there’s really no need for…”

A cup of sake was pushed into her good hand, hands clapping her on the shoulders. The touch was enough to make Rei’s skin crawl. She tried to signal to the twins with her eyes, but they were too busy pointing her out to everyone in the bar. The room was too hot, too noisy, too bright… and was that lavender she could smell, or was she imagining it?

“Three cheers for Rei!” Spade called out, her drink swinging wildly as she gesticulated. “Hip-hip…”

A hand grabbed Rei’s arm, dragging her through the crowd. Rei’s muscles tensed. She tried to speak, but her larynx didn’t seem to be working properly, and her vision was starting to blur. Spade, how was Spade managing? How did it not remind her of everything they’d been through? She gasped, her chest heaving but no breath going in or out. _No… I can’t…_ She wasn’t sure what she couldn’t do, but the words were like bold painted letters in her mind, and they were all she could focus on.

The cold night air hit her like a wave. She staggered, grabbed at the wall for support, and slid to her knees. Her stomach heaved, and she found herself throwing up the weak grog and Finch’s tasteless sandwich of earlier.

Scrap’s wet nose nudged at Rei’s elbow. He jumped into her lap and licked at her neck as she clutched at him, shaking. When she’d calmed herself enough to be able to breathe normally again, she realised she and Scrap were not the only two outside. She turned and saw Jared, watching with concern from a distance.

“Oh… I’m sorry,” she mumbled.

“Hey, hey, it’s fine. Are you OK?”

“Define OK.” Rei’s stomach was still churning, but the worst of it seemed to be over now. She was in World’s End, not the slave camp, and Lord Haga was dead and rotting somewhere. “How long have I been out here?”

“About thirty seconds. You want me to get you some water?”

“Uh, no thanks. Not right now. I just want a minute or two out here.”

He nodded and backed off. She ran her hands over her stubby horns, trying to think past the emotions crowding her mind. She’d been going to ask him something… what was it?

“Flotsam,” she said suddenly.

“I’m sorry?”

“You’ve heard of Flotsam, right? Okranite women who’ve broken off from the Holy Nation?”

“Oh yeah. The cannibal hunters have told us about them, but me and Spade have never been there. Why do you ask?”

“Have you ever met Pia?”

Jared barked a laugh. “Oh yes. Anyone who’s been in World’s End long enough has met her.”

“Well, I met her today. She was talking about Moll and the… Flotsam women?”

“Flotsam Ninjas.”

“Yeah, them. And I was thinking, maybe that’s a thing I could focus on. Helping slaves.”

“Hmm,” Jared said sceptically. “I’d be careful around the Ninjas. They’ve been known to attack Skeletons and I have no idea how they’d react to a Shek. Also, they live in the middle of the Hidden Forest surrounded by cannibals. Don’t take this the wrong way, coz I’m a bit tipsy and probably blunter than usual, but I don’t think you’re in the best shape to be making a trip there.”

Rei touched her bandaged head. It was feeling a little better than it had been, but a certain achiness still lingered. The slaver’s club and its unfamiliar weighting dug uncomfortably into the ground beside her, and she unfastened it from her belt. “So you’re advising against it.”

“It’s your call to make. But after what happened last time with the cannibals…”

Rei flinched. It was the sort of thing Bland would have said. “Yeah, I know,” she said quietly.

“Hey, I know you feel responsible for what happened to the others, and to Spade. It isn’t your fault. If anything, Spade and I should have spoken up.” He sat beside her. “I think my sister is feeling a lot of what you’re feeling right now. She just, uh… she tries to hide it. Not always very well.”

“Next drinks are on me!” Spade’s voice carried through the open door.

“Oh, boy,” Jared groaned. “We can’t afford to do that.” He stood up, offering Rei a hand. She hesitated for a second before allowing him to help her to her feet. “I’d better go. Was helping keep a flatskin’s lap warm. He’ll be missing me.”

Rei smiled. “Well, enjoy your evening.”

“You too. And if you decide to go to Flotsam, say goodbye to us first, yeah? Don’t go wandering off into your next heroic adventure without telling us.”

Rei was glad of the darkness. “I think you have me mixed up with someone who has _heroic adventures_.”

“Nah. You’re gutsy. Right, I’d better go check on my sister.” He turned and ambled away, a little more unsteadily than his use of _a bit tipsy_ might have suggested.

“I guess that’s our answer then, Scrap,” Rei said aloud. She wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, the taste of vomit still fresh in her mouth. “Urgh. I’m really glad I didn’t throw up on him. That’d have been awkward.”

Scrap just wagged his stumpy tail at her.

“He said I was gutsy. What does that even mean?” Her head was still in a daze. The experience of having been in the tight, throbbing crowd clearly hadn’t worn off yet. “Is that a good thing, d’you think?”

Even in the relative quiet of outside, the noise of the bar was becoming too much for Rei. She headed back towards the University, wondering if Finch had recovered enough from his anger over sandwiches for her to be able to get an uninterrupted night’s rest.

 

* * *

 

There had been nothing beautiful about the sunset for Ava. In the dwindling light, navigating the Spine Canyon was treacherous, but they had little choice if they wanted to ever see the Skimsands. Kat, as the most light-footed, trod the ground ahead of them, testing it out to make sure it wasn’t about to collapse as the cliff had done. Ava clung to Ruka, twinges of agony passing through her ribs with every step. She knew she should be resting. She also knew that resting was not an option.

Breathing _hurt_. It was difficult to not inhale sharply with every pain she felt. Her mind was so focused on her ribcage that she barely noticed the scrapes and bruises from her earlier fall, but she noticed how difficult moving could be. She stumbled on a loose stone, and it was a mark of Ruka’s own injuries that she too staggered at the sudden weight pulling on her.

“You doing alright?”

“I’m fine,” Ava gasped. “Let’s just keep going.”

They were drawing near to the edge of the Skimsands, Ava realised. The moonlight shone down over the dunes, though the paths down the cliffs were cloaked in shadow. The dust blew across their faces, and Ava covered her face with her arm. “Kat, you’re going to have to slow down. Ruka and I can’t keep up.”

“Oh, right.” Kat, who’d unwittingly picked up her pace as she scrambled over rocks, came to a stop on the path. “Sorry.”

They moved a little more slowly after that, though no less carefully. Ava watched the blurry form of Kat’s retreating backpack, thankful that they at least had a bag between them. They might not have had water, or food, or a first-aid kit, but they had money. Kat had taken a huge risk, but she might have just saved them all.

“What you did earlier was stupid,” Ava told her.

“I know.”

“And it was the exact opposite of what Ruka and I said to do.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Thank you for doing it.”

Ava ran her tongue over her dry lips, tasting nothing but dust and grit. _If only Ruka had filled all the skins with water like I asked her to, we’d probably have something to drink, too._ But there was no use in if-onlys. Their situation, though still dire, was better than it could have been, and the faint glimmer of hope that they would reach Okran’s Shield without being intercepted by a samurai patrol was still alive.

“This feels weird,” Kat said.

“Are you OK?” Ava asked, immediately concerned.

“I’m fine, don’t worry. It just… it’s odd, I don’t know. Feels like so much has happened.”

“So much _has_ happened.”

“And yet somehow we managed to get through it all… escaping Bark, pulling off that stunt at the slave camp, killing a _noble_ … and we’re _still_ one step ahead of the United Cities.”

“Let’s hold off on the celebrations for now. When we arrive at the Hub, that’s when we can relax.”

“What are we gonna do at the Hub?”

“I hadn’t really thought that far ahead,” Ava admitted. “I guess we’ll set up a home base there, maybe join the Shinobi Thieves for some additional protection. Try and live out the rest of our days in peace.” She paused. “Obviously you’d be welcome to join us, but if you wanted to go your own way…”

“Where would I even go? I can’t fight. I’d have been really screwed getting out of Shark if I hadn’t had Longstoat with me.”

Ava looked at the battered, rusted katana on Kat’s belt. Back in the safety of Bark, the fact that only Rei and Ruka were trained fighters hadn’t been an issue. But with Rei leading the escaped slaves to freedom, and Ruka still recovering from her last fight, she was uncomfortably aware that they were relying on Kat’s inexperienced swordwork if things went wrong. And things were bound to go wrong. Even if they got out of the Spine Canyon in one piece, and successfully avoided the roving patrols, there was still the matter of skimmers to consider. It was all too easy to walk over one of their ambushes without realising it, especially in the dark.

“Guys,” Ruka said urgently.

Ava’s breath caught. She’d heard it too, the sound of loose rocks sliding down the path behind them. She looked up. There were four men on the rise of the hill they’d just descended, dressed like the bandits they’d encountered earlier. She froze, hoping the darkness would be enough to conceal them, but the men had caught sight of Kat’s gleaming eyes, if not her silhouette. “That’s her! Grab them!”

There was no time to react, only to run. Ava found herself slipping and sliding, loose stones and grit cascading down the slope along with her. She heard a yell from behind her. “Don’t bother with the Greenlander! Get the damn Scorchlander!”

Ava turned to see what had happened to Kat and Ruka, but they were lost to the darkness by now. Her momentary distraction caused her feet to falter, and with the momentum carrying her forward regardless, she ended up losing her balance. Her boots slid underneath her, sending her tumbling down the side of the hill. Waves of agony shot up her chest every time she rolled over her broken ribs, but she had no breath left to scream or indeed, make any sound at all.

When she finally came to a stop she lay in the dust, whimpering like a wounded animal. Coughs racked her body, but the spasms of pain were too great for her to be able to remove the grit from her lungs. For a minute, breathing was so agonising she was sure that was it, that she had punctured a lung.

A light fell over her.

“Bandit?” a voice called.

“Uh… no.” The shadow immediately next to Ava shifted slightly. She rolled over, groaning. The light hitting her face caused her eyes to screw up. Was it her imagination, or did she recognise that voice?

“Oh, shit,” Ava whispered, recognition coming far too late to save her.

“Hello, Ava,” Marisa said grimly.

 


	10. Honour

“On your feet.” Marisa was trying to stay calm, but Ava could tell her voice was shaking. “Hands behind your back.”

“Give me a minute,” Ava said weakly.

Standing would have been a difficult task even without the aggravation of her broken ribs. Her legs didn’t seem to want to support her weight, and her knees threatened to buckle. More people had come out of the shadows, surrounding her. There was a full squad of samurai there. In spite of her blurry vision and her own distraction, Ava noticed two of the men were not wearing samurai armour, and were dressed more like mercenaries.

“Send word back to the other group.” The light was shone in Ava’s face again. “Spread out along the Canyon, intercept the people who were with her.”

“Nobody was with me.”

“She’s lying,” said Marisa. “I heard voices back there.”

“Bandits.”

A flicker of doubt crossed Marisa’s face, but then she lowered the lantern and her expression was lost to the darkness. “Hold the lantern for me, Ceras.”

“Oh… right,” one of the mercenaries, an older Greenlander, said. He fumbled with the lantern, nearly dropping it. Marisa pulled out rope from her backpack.

“I said hands behind your back.”

“Tie ’em front,” Ceras said. “She looks pretty busted up to me. If she trips…”

“I didn’t ask for your opinion.”

Ava’s legs wobbled. Ceras held her by the shoulder to keep her from collapsing. Marisa yanked Ava’s arms back and began winding the rope around her wrists. “Remember when you did this to me?”

“Oh come on,” Ava mumbled. “Of all the things to hold over me, you’re going to bring up _that_ one? I had to. And they found you, didn’t they?”

Ceras was chuckling. “ _She_ got the better of you?”

The rope tightened very suddenly, and Ava gasped. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I was missing a leg.”

Ava had briefly forgotten about that. “Lady Sanda gave you a replacement?”

“Yup.” Marisa tied a knot, then continued winding the rope.

“You shouldn’t be using that full-time. The stump hasn’t fully healed.”

“Shut up.”

A few of the samurai had gone up the path Ava had fallen down, using the moonlight to guide them. To Ava’s relief, they returned empty-handed.

“No sign of any of the others. They’ll be off the path by now.”

“Urgh,” grunted the second mercenary. “If anyone fights her except me…”

Marisa finished tying the ropes and shoved Ava into Ceras. “Guard her.”

“She seems to be hurt pretty bad,” Ceras observed, but he led Ava over to a rock and sat her down. “Stay there.”

Ava wasn’t in much of a position to disobey. Her bruised shoulders ached with the unnatural, uncomfortable position they were in, and her ribcage was on fire. She scrunched her face up and tried not to sob, or indeed move at all.

“’Scuse me for doin’ this,” Ceras said. His hands moved over Ava’s sides, checking her ribs. “Those feel broken. How’d you do that?”

“Ceras,” Marisa said snippily. “I asked you to guard the prisoner, not have idle chit-chat with her.”

“Right, right. Sorry.” He shot Ava an apologetic look.

The samurai were discussing what to do next. Ava prayed that Kat and Ruka were well away by now, and that Kat had held to her promise of running in the opposite direction and not trying to intervene. She tried not to think too hard about what her capture meant for _her_ , but the speculations strode unbidden into her mind. Each was worse than the one that had preceded it, until eventually it arrived at the worst case scenario of all.

Tengu’s Vault.

Even when she’d been living in the Holy Nation, Ava had heard of Tengu’s Vault. The priests had said it was a shining example of the empire’s depravity. No chance for rebirth through hard manual labour, just a lifetime of being locked away in a high-security prison and maybe being tortured on Tengu’s whims. Ava now knew better than to think the Okranites were any less twisted, but the thought of Tengu’s Vault was still enough to make her shiver.

Not everyone seemed convinced by Marisa’s earlier recognition, as a few doubtful souls were comparing Ava’s face against her bounty poster. Ava supposed that with her hair loose, and her goggles missing, and her face covered in bruises, she was even less recognisable from the poor likeness on the poster. Her hopes briefly flared and then completely plummeted; even if she tried to act her way out of this situation, she knew Marisa wouldn’t let it slide.

“Did Lady Sanda send you?” she asked her former patient.

“None of your business.”

“Did she send the mercenaries too?”

“I said _none of your business_. If you don’t quiet down, I’ll have you gagged as well.”

“Her ribs are broken,” Ceras pointed out. “She’s struggling to breathe as it is. Unless you want to explain to Lady Sanda why we brought her in dead, you won’t do anything what might suffocate her.”

Marisa hissed something in Ceras’s ear. Ava didn’t quite catch it, but she thought it might have been something about not undermining her threats. She twisted on her rock to look at the Shek mercenary, who was glaring at her. With his broken horn, she had the oddest feeling she knew him from somewhere, but she had no idea where.

“Stare at me longer, flatskin, and I will make you rue the day you were birthed.”

“That’s enough, Kuto,” Ceras said. “Your fight’s not with her.”

Kuto strode up to Ava, who flinched back automatically, and pushed his face into hers. His eyes were wild. “Where is the hornless one?”

“Wh-what?”

“The one who took my horn. _Where is she_?”

“I don’t know.”

“Urgh.” He moved away from her and unsheathed his sabre, pointing the tip at Ava’s face. Ava, Ceras and Marisa all looked at the sword with apprehension.

“Don’t do anything stupid, Kuto,” Marisa said.

“If I make her scream, will the hornless one come to save her?”

“You would hurt a defenceless flatskin?” Ava said, fear bolstering her confidence. “Dishonour.”

Something shifted in Kuto’s expression. He slowly lowered the blade. “Perhaps the flatskin has a point.”

Marisa stepped between Kuto and Ava and crouched down so she was on Ava’s eye level. “We’ll find your friends, you know. They might be able to run, but they can’t hide from us. We’ll tear every bit of this canyon apart until we have them. Kuto’s going to have his fight, Lady Sanda will reward us and you’ll be locked away where you belong.”

Ava didn’t answer. She had a horrible feeling that Marisa was right.

 

* * *

 

As the samurai talked amongst themselves and sent off small search parties to scout the area, Ceras was left on guard duty. He was not the only guard, of course; the samurai didn’t trust hired swords to supervise prisoners, but he thought of himself as the main one. The other samurai kept their distance, their hands on the hilts of their katanas, as Ceras perched on the rock next to the captive.

“You cold?” he said. “We got sleeping bags.”

She shook her head. Ceras was sure he could see gooseflesh on her tied arms, but he didn’t comment. If she wanted to play it tough, he’d let her. “Y’know, you guys kind of pissed off Lady Sanda.”

“Did we.” Her voice was so flat it wasn’t even a question.

“What did you do to Marisa?”

“Nothing I wanted to do.”

Ceras figured the half answers were the best he was going to get. He sat back on the rock and stretched. Marisa was a safe distance away, speaking with one of the samurai. Kuto, who had been denied permission to go and search for the no-horns, was sulking. The prisoner, Ava, was staring into the middle distance, a slight tremor in her creased eyebrows. Ceras wondered if she was really capable of murdering Lord Haga, when she clearly felt guilty about whatever had happened to Marisa.

“I heard someone cut his head off,” he said. “Neat blow by all accounts. Must’ve took some strength.”

“Mm.”

“You were Lady Sanda’s doctor, right?”

His question was met with silence. He shrugged. “Look, I know it ain’t much, but at least you got found by us and not skimmers.”

“I would rather have taken the skimmers.”

“I don’t think… actually, yeah. Yeah, that’s fair.”

He looked at her. She was younger than her poster suggested, only a few years older than Marisa. With her hair loose, her face was fuller and softer, and although she wasn’t any great beauty, she wasn’t completely plain, either. Not that Ceras could properly tell what she looked like. She’d clearly been through the wringer. There were squarish cuts around her eyes, as if a pair of goggles had been smashed into her face, and she was covered in bruises and the occasional swelling. Her lips were cracked and had started to bleed, possibly because she was currently biting at them. She looked as though she hadn’t slept properly in days.

For the second time that day, Ceras felt sorry for someone else. He wasn’t sure that whatever crimes this woman had committed was worth a condemnation to Tengu’s torture prison.

“Had anything to eat recently?” he said. “Or to drink?”

Ava hesitated.

“Look, I know you ain’t gonna want to accept anything from me. And that’s OK. But you’re gonna feel even worse if you don’t eat or drink. They ain’t gonna leave you behind if you refuse it, they’re just gonna drag you when you can’t walk anymore. So, you should probably keep your strength up.”

He got one of the waterskins off Marisa, unscrewed the top, offered it to Ava. She looked at it for a second, then back at him. He shrugged again and took a drink. Having established that the water was neither drugged nor poisoned, he handed it to her. She stared at him like he’d broken into a sudden song and dance.

“Oh, yeah. Sorry. Forgot.” He sat back down beside her and brought the waterskin to her mouth so she could drink. She tried to drink with some restraint at first, but then dehydration got the better of her and she started gulping the water down thirstily. So much for rations. Ceras hoped Marisa wasn’t about to yell at him. “You want food as well? We got food.”

Ava nodded, but Marisa was even less keen to share the food than she’d been to share the water.

“Tengu’s Vault is only a day or so away,” she told Ceras. “She’s not about to collapse from starvation.”

“Oh, come on. Where’s your compassion?”

Marisa scowled at him, but to his surprise, she backed down. “Fine. Just don’t give her all of it. It needs to last us _at least_ until we get to the Vault, or until we find a trader caravan. And don’t give her any of the good stuff. Don’t waste the ration packs on her.”

Ceras found some dried garru meat in the bottom of Marisa’s bag. He brought it over to Ava. “Bit of chew to this, but it’s good stuff. Want some?”

If she’d had any objections to being fed like a small child, she didn’t raise them. Ceras suspected she was too hungry to care. She swallowed the jerky down before she’d even had a chance to chew it properly.

“You’re gonna give yourself indigestion, you know,” Ceras observed.

“Give me the water. Please.”

He passed her the waterskin and allowed her to drink until it was empty. With her more basic needs seen to, relief flitted across her face, only to be immediately crushed by the reality of the situation she’d found herself in. Ceras wished there was something he could say that would make her feel better, but he had to admit things were looking pretty bleak for her.

“For what it’s worth,” he said, “Lady Sanda hired me to do this. It ain’t personal.”

“I don’t care.”

“Fair enough, I guess.”

Ava was grimacing. Ceras realised that the force on her shoulders was causing her to hunch forward, which was putting pressure on her injuries. She was trying to sit with her back straight, but she was clearly struggling. “OK, screw it. Don’t matter what Marisa says.”

“What are the fuck are you doing?” Marisa snapped as Ceras started untying Ava’s ropes. “You’re supposed to be _guarding_ her, not setting her free.”

The samurai all drew their swords. Ceras raised a hand defensively.

“Hey, easy there. If you want her to puncture a lung…”

“We’re watching you,” said one of the samurai warningly.

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”

The ropes came away. Ava pulled her hands forward with a groan. She didn’t thank Ceras, but she didn’t glare at him quite as much as she had been doing. Looking furious at having been overruled, Marisa strode forwards and started re-tying her, this time binding her hands in front.

“ _Ow_.”

“Stop complaining.” Marisa knotted the rope, stepped back and glared at Ceras, silently daring him to loosen it. Ava was flexing her fingers, the strain on the tendons causing the small muscles to jerk. Ceras suspected Marisa was taking enjoyment in Ava’s discomfort.

“Reckon her friends will come back for her?” he said quietly, taking Marisa to one side.

“It’d be a stupid move on their part if they did.”

“Well, what do we do? Do we look for ’em?”

“Leave that to the samurai. It’s too dark for us to go wandering off, and besides, we need to guard the one we’ve caught. Imagine returning to Lady Sanda saying we made an arrest, but she got away.” She jabbed him in the chest with her index finger. “So don’t let your damn _compassion_ get in the way of you doing your job. Understood?”

“Yeah.” He looked back at Ava, who was staring down at her tied hands. “Look, I know you have history with her, or whatever, but don’t you think where we’re taking her is punishment enough? Don’t try and, y’know, exert your power over her. It ain’t right. Holding a grudge like that, it ain’t good for you.”

“I don’t need a lecture from you,” Marisa said as she walked away.

Ceras sighed and rubbed at his temples. Maybe there was something to be said for just being in it for the money.

 

* * *

 

The shadows may have offered plenty of hiding places, but with the bandits on their tail, Kat and Ruka were unable to make use of most of them without being spotted doing so. It was not until they had dropped down the side of a hill and out of sight of their pursuers that they were able to take cover behind a boulder. The moonlight gleamed off the surface of the boulder, turning it almost white, but there was a dark crevice down the side that afforded a decent enough space to conceal themselves. Still, it was a squeeze. Ruka was bigger than Kat, and she had to draw her shoulders in to stay entirely in the shadow. Kat lay across her in a position that was both awkward and undignified, but it was better than being seen and dragged out to face justice.

“You can’t run from us,” one of the bandits called out. “And you _certainly_ can’t hide.”

Kat was beginning to regret the backpack now. Quite aside from the fact the bandits were out for revenge, she had the feeling it was sticking up above the shadow and would be immediately noticeable from the wrong angle. She burrowed further down into the darkness, ignoring Ruka’s grunt as she accidentally stuck her elbow in her side. She couldn’t see the bandits, but she could certainly hear them, and they were close.

Ava… The bandits had said not to bother with her, but that was no guarantee she was all right. Maybe they’d caught up with her. Maybe she’d run afoul of more bandits, or skimmers. Kat knew Ruka was thinking the same.

“We’re gonna get you, you and your Shek friend. We’re gonna take our stuff right back. And you’re gonna regret everything.”

Kat’s hand, pinned by her own body weight, scrabbled for the hilt of the katana, but she had no space to draw it. Ruka grabbed her arm, signalling for her to be still. There was the sound of footsteps crunching in the dust just above their heads.

“We should retreat,” someone said suddenly. “I can see samurai down there.”

“Down _where_? I can’t see nothing.”

“On the path. They look like samurai to me. I ain’t going near that. Let’s get moving.”

 _Samurai_ … Kat nearly squeaked, but clamped her lips shut just in time.

“Hang on. I thought I heard something.”

“Leave it. I ain’t having a fight with a damn samurai patrol.”

The footsteps died away. Kat risked sitting up, and peered over the edge of the boulder. Off in the distance, she saw the retreating figures of the bandits. Then they disappeared around the side of a cliff and were lost from sight.

“That was close,” she whispered.

“Samurai. Shit.” Ruka pulled herself out from under Kat. “We have to warn Ava.”

But Kat had seen Ava run straight down the path the bandits had been talking about. She cautiously got to her feet, and hurried across the slope to a better vantage point. It was a little more exposed than the rock had been, but they were still a good distance away from the samurai, and none of them were looking in her direction anyway.

A faint yellow light light spun back and forth in the shadows, dispelling them from the immediate area. As Kat got a little closer, she noticed the light came from a man, who was swinging a lantern and whistling to himself. Beside him a woman stood with her arms folded. “Please stop whistling. It’s getting on my nerves.”

“Sorry. Nervous habit.”

“Give me that.” The woman snatched the lantern. Now the light was no longer undulating quite so much, Kat was able to focus better on the scene below her. Neither of them looked like bandits, but they seemed to be waiting for something. For a hopeful moment Kat thought perhaps the bandits had simply mistaken them for samurai, but then a couple of men in United Cities uniforms stepped into the light.

“We’ve sent word out to Adi. She says her squad will hold its position until further orders are given.”

“Right,” said the woman.

“Aside from that, there’s not much we can do until it starts getting light.”

“That’s not for hours.”

“We can’t risk sending people out on those cliffs in the dark. It’s not safe.”

“Why are we justifying it to her anyway?” one of the samurai’s fellows said. “She isn’t one of us, we don’t answer to the likes of her.”

“Have you forgotten who sent her? Because I haven’t. If you want to get on the wrong side of Lady Sanda… and end up like this one here…”

A horrible realisation sprang into Kat’s mind. She crept forwards, pushing past boulders so she could see more of the path. Sitting in the range of the lantern, but previously hidden behind a rock, was a defeated-looking Ava. The man who’d been whistling was standing next to her, as if on guard. They’d caught her.

Kat wondered if she was about to be sick. All the running, and the hiding, and the planning… all for everything to be lost in a single unguarded moment. She turned and hurried back to Ruka, who was still waiting in their original hiding spot.

“Kat?” Ruka, who’d been about to stand up, froze midway. “What is it?”

“Ava’s been captured.”

“ _What_?” Ruka’s expression immediately turned wild. “Are you sure?”

“Yeah. I saw.”

“Fuck.” Ruka bowed her head and covered her eyes for a moment. When she next spoke, her voice was calm but serious. “OK. Kat. Listen to me.”

Kat stared at her mutely.

“You remember what you promised Ava the other day, right? About running away when things got serious?”

“But we can’t! We can’t abandon her!”

“Oh, no,” Ruka said grimly. “ _We’re_ not abandoning her. _You_ are abandoning her.”

Kat gaped at her like a swamp-fish, but no words came out.

“Kat. I made Ava a promise that I wouldn’t leave her, no matter what happened. And even if I’d never made that promise, I wouldn’t do it. And you know what? I’m going down fighting. Fighting for her, and for you.”

“N-no. You can’t. They might kill you.”

“And if they do, that’s the way I want to die. With my honour restored.” Ruka unstrapped her sword from her back. “Go, Kat. Get out of here. Run to Okran’s Shield. Don’t be afraid to stick that katana in someone’s guts if they get in your face. Just… whatever you do, make it worth my fight.”

Before Kat could say anything, she was gone.

It took a second for Kat to snap out of her daze. Her instincts screamed at her to run as Ruka had commanded her, but somehow she found herself sneaking back to the place she’d been watching from. She rested her hand against the rock, feeling its comforting coolness under her palm, and watched as her friend approached the group of samurai.

Ruka was almost immediately noticed.

“Drop your weapon!” Four of the samurai created a formation across the path, standing between Ruka and Ava. “Drop your weapon now and surrender!”

“Shek don’t surrender.”

“Hey!” A Shek man pushed through the formation. “I’ll take this one. She’s mine.”

“Just… just let him,” said the man guarding Ava. “Otherwise he’ll never shut up about it.”

“So we meet again,” the Shek said to Ruka. “Remember me?”

“Am I supposed to remember you?”

“My name is Kuto. You cut off my horn, you spineless, gutless, _hornless_ coward. And now I’m here to reclaim the honour you took from me.”

“Ruka, you can’t fight him!” Ava said from behind the samurai. “Please, just run away.”

“Oh, Ava. You forgot my oath that easily.” Ruka assumed a fighting stance. “But I didn’t.”

“ _Your oath_ ,” sneered Kuto. “You’re a dishonoured warrior. Your word means nothing.”

Ruka swung her sword with a yell. Kuto’s sabre came up to block it, the curve of the blade catching the opposing sword and forcing Ruka backwards. Kat didn’t know much about swords, but she knew that the large, heavy sabres of the sort mercenaries used made for especially good defensive weapons. And Kuto definitely knew how to use one.

Kat watched Ruka recover her stance and try again. With his sabre still held out slightly to the side, Kuto had left his left side unguarded. It was a mistake, but one he mitigated quickly, sidestepping the blow as Ruka tried to land it.

“Oh, come on, no-horns. I let you have an opening there.”

“In a duel of honour, you do not give _openings_ to your opponent.”

Ruka went for another attack, but it was blocked. She tried again. Blocked. Kuto’s swordwork was fast, his weapon much lighter than Ruka’s. He went on the offensive, his blows falling fast, stopping Ruka from doing anything other than defending herself.

“Are you so weak that you can’t even wield that sword?” he taunted as Ruka barely parried his next blow. “I had hoped for a better fight than this.”

Ruka muttered something in response, but Kat was too far away to hear what she said. Kuto had a point, though; she was tiring. She seemed to be favouring her non-dominant arm, and Kat realised her shoulder was probably going to give out if she kept going. The sword clashed repeatedly against Kuto’s sabre, but never once landed a hit on Kuto himself. Kuto was blocking the onslaught almost lazily, as if making an effort was somehow beneath him. Then suddenly, he attacked.

From the way Ruka stumbled, she had not been expecting the blow at that moment. Perhaps it was the darkness, or her lack of practice, or simply exhaustion, but she’d made a serious error. The edge of Kuto’s sabre had sliced her across the chest, and although Kat did not hear her cry out, it had clearly inflicted a bad wound.

“I spent months waiting for this fight,” said Kuto. “And this is what you give me? How _disappointing_.”

“I’m not done yet!” Ruka shouted.

She took a step back, the heel of her boot firmly planting in the dust. She was uphill of Kuto, and had that as an advantage. She used it now, charging him with a battle cry. Seeing her sword coming towards him at speed, Kuto tried to move aside rather than risk the shock of the blades connecting, but this time he was too slow. The blow caught him on the arm, and he laughed almost maniacally. “Bloodshed. Now this is a worthy fight!”

Kat remembered the last time Ruka had fought for a captured Ava. She wondered if Ruka, despite her earlier statement, would be willing to set aside her honour in the same way as before. _I imagine not. She knows she can’t win, not against all those samurai._ This fight was nothing like the standoff against Hotlongs, when rescuing Ava had been the primary concern. This was a proper duel, and as was customary between two Shek, there was a very real possibility that it would end in death for one or both of them. Kat stared with a horrified fascination, unable to tear her gaze away. Even in the dim light, she could see blood pooling on Ruka’s shirt. She hadn’t been able to fight off the bandits, and they’d been far weaker than Kuto…

_Come on, Ruka._

Her successful hit lending her confidence, Ruka moved faster, her blows stronger this time. She was using up every ounce of aggression she possessed, screaming in rage as she hacked at her opponent. Kuto had good defences, but one or two blows got through. The last blow caught him in the face and he staggered back, spitting blood.

“A shame you lost your honour, hornless,” he said thickly. “You would have made a good warrior.”

“I still do.”

“Huh.”

“We’ll see who we’re calling _hornless_ by the end of this.” Ruka aimed for one of Kuto’s remaining horns, but he parried her blow. Kat could see her aggression was waning, and her stance was faltering. She didn’t have her head in the fight in the way she’d done earlier. Her frenzied attack had worn her out.

Now it was Kuto’s turn. His almost effortless parries had allowed him to conserve his strength, and Kat realised that going on the offensive in such an uncontrolled way might just have lost Ruka the fight. Still, she held up bravely as Kuto pressed forward his attack. She seemed to anticipate the blows better now, possibly due to Kuto’s own injuries, but she was unable to land any more hits of her own. Kuto blocked her next attempt, and the next, and finally the two of them stood facing each other, pushing back against each other’s swords. Ruka’s sword was trapped by the curve of Kuto’s blade, but Kuto was clearly feeling the strain of his injured arm, because he was unable to push the sword down and launch another attack. They were at a deadlock.

 _She isn’t going to win_ , Kat thought. _She has far worse injuries, and she’s barely eaten or slept since we left the slave camp._

The wind blew dust down the path. Kuto didn’t move, even with the grit in his eyes. Ruka, who was clearly feeling the pressure of the blade more and more with every second that passed, let out a groan. Kat didn’t need to be able to see her properly to know that her bunched muscles were starting to twitch at the strain and the lactic acid buildup. Eventually she could hold out no longer, and her arms slumped. Kuto struck out with his sabre, aiming straight for Ruka’s stomach.

“Ruka!” Ava screamed. Kat nearly forgot herself and screamed too. She had to cover her mouth to stop herself.

With the amount of force Kuto had put into the swing, he would have cleaved Ruka in two. When he did not, Kat realised he had hit her with the flat of the sabre. Ruka doubled up, completely winded, and collapsed on the floor. Kuto grabbed the stubs of her horns and pulled her head up so they were looking at each other.

“Not a completely pitiful fight for a no-horns,” he growled, then released her. “I’m done here. You can have her.”

“Kuto, we still have to _get_ them to Tengu’s Vault,” the woman said disapprovingly as a couple of samurai hurried forward with first-aid kits. “Do you want to carry her the whole way? Because that’s how you end up carrying someone the whole way.”

“We Shek are far hardier than soft, fleshy flatskins,” Kuto said.

Kat looked back at Ruka. She was kneeling in the dust, arms wrapped around herself. “Let me bandage my own wounds,” she hissed at the samurai. “I’m not about to have your filthy hands clawing at my chest.”

With Ruka no longer a threat, the samurai formation had broken. They surrounded Ruka, their katanas ready to attack if necessary. Ava, who was now able to properly see the aftermath of the battle, was shaking. Kat, remembering her promise to Ava, could only watch what was happening from the sidelines.

“If _she_ was lurking about,” one of the samurai said, nodding at Ruka, “the others can’t be far off. When you see one rat, there’s a whole damn nest not far away.”

The man guarding Ava looked up as if sensing one of the rats the samurai had spoken of. Kat didn’t have time to duck away. She froze, her eyes locked onto the man’s. In the moonlight she could tell he was a Greenlander, in his late forties, with limp greasy hair and a stubbly beard that hadn’t been shaved in at least a week. His expression shifted slightly. She knew he’d seen her. He knew she’d seen him.

“Hey, Ceras,” the woman said. “Not a bad evening, right?”

Ceras looked away. “I mean, we got two of ’em. The rest are probably long gone, though.”

“We’ll find them.”

Was it a trick? Kat tried to move, but found herself glued to the spot.

“Maybe,” Ceras said vaguely. He glanced back up at Kat, and this time Kat realised what he was trying to tell her. _They haven’t seen you and nor have I._ “Huh, think I might have seen something move up there.” He pointed up the path away from where Kat was hiding.

Now was her chance. She seized it, though not before taking one last look at her captured friends. There were samurai guarding a nearby path, but she anticipated them and crouched low to the ground as she moved. The Skimsands may have been a little more exposed than the Great Desert had been, but there was still a limit to how much the samurai could see past the sand-drifts. She took a deep breath, mentally steeling herself, then broke cover and ran.

She ran until she was too exhausted to run anymore. The adrenaline, which had carried her legs even when her lungs couldn’t take it anymore, began to dissipate, replaced by the cold shock of what had happened. The wind whistled and blew at her short hair, ruffling it, but it came as no comfort to Kat.

For the first time in a long while, she was entirely alone.


	11. Letter

Rei stared at the blank piece of paper on the table, rolling the pencil in her fingers. It wasn’t that she didn’t know what to say – she’d been thinking it over most of the night – but trying to frame the individual words in her mind was more challenging. She couldn’t remember what order the different letters of the alphabet came in, and her penmanship was inexperienced enough that only a seasoned reader would be able to decipher what she was trying to say. Still, she was determined to give it her best effort, and after a slow deliberation she held the pencil in her fist and pressed it point down on the paper to form the first letter.

The pencil lead snapped immediately.

“Fuck.”

She went off in search of something to sharpen it with, but the few weapons that were kept downstairs had been securely locked away. She considered fetching her fragment axe from upstairs, but that was in need of sharpening too. Eventually she found a knife and started shaving away chunks of wood, her actions clumsy from her slinged arm.

When the pencil was once again sharp enough to write with, she readjusted her grip, trying to avoid a repeat of her previous mistake. The letters formed without incident after that, though she suspected they were all jumbled up in the words. She stuck her tongue between her teeth in concentration as she wrote, biting down hard enough to sting whenever she arrived at a particularly difficult spelling.

It took her a good half hour to write a page of disjointed, rambling sentences, but she was still proud of her efforts. She gave the completed letter one last once-over, occasionally crossing out words she thought she’d misused and replacing them with ones that were easier to spell. She’d never written a letter in her life, and she hoped it wouldn’t be too obvious. When she was satisfied, she folded the paper in on itself and wrote _Moll_ in large, careful handwriting on the exposed side. Then she slipped it in her pocket and went to find Pia.

She found Pia outside the ranger’s shop, having presumably just stocked up on ammunition for Flotsam’s turrets. Relieved that the girl had not yet left, she held out the letter. “Could you deliver this to Moll for me, please?”

Pia looked doubtfully at the missive.

“I’m not supposed to take letters,” she said. “Iyo said so.”

Rei’s heart sank. “Really? Why?”

“Said he don’t want the Holy Nation to intercept anything. Coz of how he’s trying to pretend World’s End ain’t a hotbed of heresy and all that. I mean personally I don’t think there’s much to worry about, on account of the fact I can outrun basically whatever, and also the cannibals kind of stop the paladins from going anywhere near us, but he did say…”

“Damn. It took me ages to write this.”

Pia hesitated. “What’re you saying to her?”

“I want to join Flotsam.”

“Really?” Pia’s eyes lit up. “That’s great! Well, I can just tell her that myself. You know, I’m quite good at remembering messages, as long as they’re short, I mean I did once forget a really long one that Moll sent me with and she got mad at me because I forgot the important stuff, but I won’t do that this time, I swear.”

“Thanks, but I told her some kind of personal stuff in that letter. I’d rather she hears it from me. Never mind.” Rei forced a smile. “I’ll wait until I’ve healed enough to travel and tell her in person.”

“No, wait!” Pia lowered her voice. “Look, I like you, you seem nice. I wanna help. Your letter’ll be safe with me. I wouldn’t read it, even if I could read, and I can see it gets to Moll. And then she could write you a letter back, and I could deliver it here to you, and then _you_ could write one back and…”

“But what about Iyo?”

“He doesn’t need to know. It’ll be our secret. Come on, give me the letter. I need to get going if I want to be back before it gets dark. I hate doing anything in the dark. I once bumped into some cannibals in the dark and I _very nearly_ got caught and eaten.”

“OK.” Rei handed her the letter. Pia put it in her bag along with the turret bolts and the books Iyo had given her.

“It’ll be safe with me,” she said. “Don’t worry.”

“Thank you.”

Rei watched as Pia departed. She tried not to think about what might happen if Iyo found out what she’d just done. It made sense for him to be cautious about handwritten messages being passed back and forth. From what she had gathered, World’s End was trying to stay on neutral terms with the Holy Nation, with much of the work the Tech Hunters and Machinists had been doing kept on the down-low for that reason. It felt like a poor way to repay him, and a dishonourable one, too.

 _He doesn’t have to know_ , she thought.

Even so, she was sure the guilt was written on her face as she returned to the University. It was mid-morning, and the Machinists were beginning their day’s work in Finch’s lab. The sleeping bags lay unattended under the stairs. Spade and Jared had been absent all night, and Rei suspected they were probably passed out under a table in the bar. Lekko had been asleep when Rei had gone downstairs to write her letter, but she’d disappeared off somewhere too. Now they no longer had a collective goal tying them together, everyone was doing their own thing and trying to put together some semblance of an individual life. Rei wondered how long they’d all be in the same place. She imagined that Spade and Jared were keen to get back to the tech hunting.

The thought of parting ways forever was surprisingly upsetting, after having already said goodbye to Kat, and Ava, and Ruka. No-one else had shared in Rei’s fear and uncertainty and elation quite like the slaves had. And she could see some of them, like the twins, shaping up to be good friends in the right circumstances. She slumped against the wall and watched the Machinists work.

Following the explosion of the previous day, the core was sitting in disgrace on a workbench at the side of the room. Rei noticed scorch marks on the casing. Finch had elected to ignore it, and was instead working on some small robotic device that made whirring noises when a button was pressed. Iyo was taking inventory on a collection of bits of old machinery that some of the Tech Hunters had brought back from their recent expedition. Two of the Machinists were having an argument over the gadget they’d been restoring.

“I’m saying, it doesn’t look safe.”

“It looks plenty safe to me.”

“Well, what about that red wire there, that’s smouldering.”

“You know the rules,” Iyo said wearily, not looking up. “ _If it’s gonna get fried, you take it outside_.”

As the two Machinists removed the contraption from the vicinity, Rei wandered over to see what the Tech Hunters had found. To her casual eye, it didn’t look that exciting. There were a few rotting books with torn and damaged covers, some chunks of rusted metal with bolts and rivets attached, and a large number of gearwheels of different sizes. Rei picked up one of the gearwheels. It left a smudge of black oil on her fingertips.

“Put that down,” Iyo said without looking up. “It’s not good practice to touch things of uncertain origin, especially if you’re an organic.”

“Sorry.” Rei set the cog back on the table.

“The ruin was crawling with blood spiders, by all accounts. Nasty things, they are. They spit acid containing venom, which gets everywhere. You don’t want that venom in your system. Just ask Spade.”

Rei hurriedly wiped her hand on her trousers and inspected it to make sure the skin was unbroken.

“If there’d been any trace of acid on that gearwheel, you’d know about it by now. Just… don’t touch. Leave it to the Skeleton to handle.”

Rei stepped away. Iyo wet a cloth and started wiping the surface of one of the larger chunks of metal. “Has Pia left?”

“Yeah.”

“I keep telling that one to be careful,” Iyo said. “Being a fast runner is all well and good until you get too cocky. Cocky people get caught.” He turned the metal chunk over. “If Pia ever gets captured and interrogated by the Holy Nation, we could be in some trouble.” He looked at Rei for a second, but being a Skeleton, Rei was unable to tell what he was thinking. She tried to assume an expression which didn’t suggest she’d gone against Iyo and sent a letter with Pia.

“It’s a dangerous world we live in,” Iyo said. “I hate to think what’d happen if the Holy Nation ever attacked World’s End.”

He turned back to his work. Rei bit her lower lip, hoping that Iyo would never find out even half of what she’d failed to tell him. She made her excuses and left, trying not to feel like she’d betrayed the one person she owed the most to.

 

* * *

 

They’d been walking for most of the night, and Ava was ready to fall over.

The group had been keen to keep going, to deliver their captives to the Vault as quickly as possible. _Quickly_ , however, was a relative term. The Vault, being located on the Skimsands at the southern tip of the Spine Canyon, couldn’t have been that far away, but with Ruka barely able to walk, and Ava not much better off, the distance meant little.

Ava sneaked a look at Ceras. He’d introduced himself to her after Ruka’s capture, and whilst she didn’t think much of him, she liked him better than Marisa and Kuto, the three-horned Shek. Earlier, Ceras had suggested allowing the captives a chance to rest, but Marisa and the samurai had shouted them down. He seemed purely motivated by his own greed, which at least made him less threatening than either Marisa or Kuto.

There was a hiss of pain from beside Ava. Ruka had stumbled, or maybe the soldier just behind her had pushed her forward. Ava longed to ask her if she was OK, but the samurai had already warned her not to talk. Besides, Ruka was so clearly not OK it was a pointless question. Her fight with Kuto had completely wrecked her. Her shirt had been removed, her modesty completely encased in bloodstained bandages, and there was livid bruising over her stomach where Kuto had hit her with the flat of his sabre. Ava could tell her shoulder was also busted up from the way her bound hands favoured her side. Several weeks of healing, undone in a few short minutes. Ava suspected that where they were going, there would be little in the way of medical treatment, and Ruka’s shoulder was going to fuse completely wrong.

It wasn’t just Ruka, either. Ava could feel a slight stabbing pain in her side that she hadn’t felt before. Where previously her ribs had just been fractured, her fall down the slope had pressed one of them inwards. From its location and severity, it probably wouldn’t kill her, but there was a chance it would leave her in permanent discomfort even after it had healed.

The one comfort to Ava was that they hadn’t caught Kat. She’d been surprised, but relieved to see that Kat had kept her promise and run away. Ava hoped she would stay free. Tengu’s Vault was no place for anyone, but least of all for a seventeen-year-old. _Okran protect her_. She knew she’d never see Kat again, any more than she would see the sun or the stars or the sands. She’d never see anything other than the inside of an iron cage and whoever happened to be caged next to her. She might not even see Ruka after this. Ava’s chest tightened, and her ribs gave a pained twinge in response.

“Here,” said Ceras, “have water.”

Marisa gave a snort from the front of the group but did not stop Ceras from unbuckling her bag and pulling out the waterskin. Ava took it in her bound hands and gulped water down, then helped Ruka drink. The samurai, who normally tried to keep the two of them at least some distance apart, allowed her. Ava’s eyes caught Ruka’s. As if on an instinct Ruka reached out, her fingers brushing Ava’s arm.

“All right, that’s enough.” Someone snatched the waterskin away from Ava. Ava found herself being pulled away, and her view of Ruka was lost behind three samurai who positioned themselves between them.

In front of Ava, Marisa was cursing. Her mechanical leg, which was clearly faulty, had just jammed up again. It gave her a stiff gait that looked like a one-legged parody of a soldier’s march. Ceras chuckled, and Marisa spun to glare at him. “Do you think this is _funny_?”

“No,” Ceras said quickly.

“Because if I hear you laughing again…”

Marisa’s threat hung in the air. She shook her leg until her knee unjammed, and continued walking in a more ordinary fashion. Ava watched the awkwardness with which she was moving, even with her leg working normally again. With such a recent and significant surgery, she had to be in constant pain, but she was hiding it well. Ava was impressed the wound hadn’t reopened. _Unless it has and I haven’t noticed_.

Part of Ava wanted to feel sorry for Marisa. She suspected Marisa had been presented with as much choice in working for Lady Sanda as Ava had. On top of that, she’d been sent out into the desert just a few short weeks after a traumatic injury. But Marisa was also the person who’d recognised Ava in the first place. Her loyalty to Lady Sanda was evidently stronger than her loyalty to the doctor who’d saved her life.

There came a shout from one of the samurai. A small pack of skimmers had noticed the group and were making their way across the sands towards them. Ceras took Ava by the arm and drew her back as the samurai assumed formation. Ava briefly considered making a run for it, but dismissed the thought immediately. There was no way either she or Ruka was in any condition to escape, and with their hands tied, they wouldn’t get far. She stood by and watched as the samurai faced off against the skimmers. With the group’s numbers, the skimmers didn’t stand much of a chance, and once their legs had been severed, they weren’t getting back up. Marisa helped the samurai dispatch the wounded ones, and they continued on their way.

They came up against more skimmers on the journey, and each fight lasted a little longer than the one that had preceded it. With the soldiers getting tired, they finally acquiesced to Ceras’s suggestion that they rest, and Ava and Ruka were permitted a chance to sit down.

Marisa was not pleased at the delay. She paced the sands and muttered to herself, occasionally shooting dirty looks at the two prisoners. She’d taken a lot of convincing to leave the Spine Canyon, after waiting had turned up no further fugitives, and it had only been at the patrol’s terse reminder that they were wasting time that she had agreed to move on. Ava suspected the samurai would have been far more forceful in their persuasion tactics had Marisa not been sent with Lady Sanda’s approval.

“How far?” Marisa said now.

“We’re almost at the end of the Canyon,” replied one of the samurai. “We’ll be there soon enough.”

Ava felt a cold chill run down her spine, even though it was a hot day. She glanced at Ruka, who was sitting hunched in the dust a few feet away. Ruka didn’t give much indication that she’d heard the samurai’s words, but Ava was sure she saw her friend’s jaw tighten.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered as loudly as she dared.

Ruka looked up. “Why are you sorry?” she whispered back.

“I got us caught.”

“No. I made a promise, remember?”

A couple of the samurai were having a conversation that was just loud enough to cover Ava and Ruka’s words. Ceras watched them, but made no move to stop them talking. Ava turned her face so Marisa couldn’t see her lips move.

“What’s gonna happen?”

“Nothing good. Hey, speaking as someone with experience, I got some advice for ya when we’re inside. Keep your mouth shut. Only speak when the guards ask you questions. Don’t go talking to the other prisoners. Don’t look at anyone funny, just keep your head down. We’re gonna be targets for the guards as soon as we step through those gates, so don’t give ’em any more reasons to hurt you.”

Ava nodded. Her throat felt raw. “I wish I could bail you out of this one, Ruka.”

“I wish there was something I could have done to save you.”

Ava wished she could hug her. She settled instead for putting her hands on Ruka’s. Ruka’s fingers curled awkwardly around her own.

“Whatever happens, Ava…” Ruka went slightly red. “I love you.”

“I love you too. I mean, well you know…” she stammered, afraid Ruka might get the wrong end of the stick.

“Hey, it’s OK. I know. You don’t have to qualify it.”

A hand grabbed a fistful of Ava’s hair, dragging her head up. She yelped in shock and pain, scrabbling to her feet to avoid the tearing sensation on her scalp. Her eyes watered as she was yanked backwards.

“Hey!” Ruka shouted. “Don’t do that!”

There was the sound of a slap. “Did we give you permission to speak?”

Ava found herself being marched towards Marisa, who was scowling. “You were supposed to be _watching_ them,” she snapped at Ceras.

“I was!”

“And you didn’t think to stop them from talking to each other?”

“It’s only _talking_.”

Ava looked back at Ruka. Her cheek was reddened from where the samurai had hit her. Ceras was frowning. “Still no need to hit ’em. Or manhandle ’em.”

“Are you questioning us, mercenary?” said one of the samurai warningly.

“Uh… no?”

“Better keep your own silence, or we’ll find out what _only talking_ gets you out here.”

From then on Ava was kept at the front of the group with Marisa, while Kuto and several of the samurai guarded Ruka at the rear. Even without her goggles on, Ava could tell that Marisa was definitely in pain. If nothing else, the chafing of the prosthesis was wearing away at a half-healed stump.

“You should take that leg off when you have a chance,” she said. “Let it breathe.”

Marisa twitched. For a moment Ava wondered if she was about to hit her. “Be quiet.”

“Look, you shouldn’t be using a Skeleton limb full-time, and you certainly shouldn’t be pushing yourself. You don’t even know how to look after it. It’s going to seriously fuck you over in the long-term.”

“I said _be quiet_ ,” Marisa said, her voice trembling.

“You know I’m right. And I know Lady Sanda’s probably not going to let you have any recovery time now you have that leg. But at least listen to what I have to say.”

Marisa ignored her. Ava fell silent. She’d tried.

Tengu’s Vault appeared in the distance just before noon. It took Ava a while to realise that was what it was; she’d initially taken it for some ruin of a time long past. But as they got closer she was able to make out the dark, tower-like structure and the walls that encircled it. _Of course,_ she thought. If one place had to be the emperor’s infamous torture prison, it was going to be that one.

They drew nearer, and Ava felt her mouth turn dry. The prison was built into a steep, rocky hill, and traversing the terrain was difficult with bound hands and broken ribs. Behind her, she could hear Ruka’s grunts of exertion as she too struggled. Most of the sand had blown away from the hillside, though a few clumps, secured by scrubland grasses, remained in sheltered places.

“Move faster,” Marisa ordered her.

Ava tried to speed up, but her legs were too tired, and she nearly stumbled into Marisa. Swearing under her breath, Marisa grabbed her by the shirt and kept her upright. They finally arrived at the main gates to the prison, which were being blocked by a half dozen guards. For a fleeting second Ava thought they were Skeletons, but then realised they were wearing flared helmets with mask-like visors. The visors gave them an almost monstrous appearance, made worse by the fact Ava couldn’t see their faces. She’d seen the uniforms being worn by samurai in Lady Sanda’s employ.

“This is a secure zone…” But the guard who’d spoken had already seen the prisoners. She stepped forward, her hand on the hilt of her _nodachi_. “Who are these?”

“This is the Okranite wanted for the murder of Lord Haga,” said Marisa proudly. “And her accomplice.”

“I have received word from Tengu on this matter,” replied the guard. “You may pass through.”

As Ava was led through the gates, she felt a sudden sharp sting on her back. One of the guards had just thrown a stone at her. “Murderer!”

“Calm yourself,” the first guard said. “There will be retribution, but not now.”

More masked samurai were keeping watch between the gates and the prison entrance. They saluted Ava’s captors as they approached. “We shall inform the warden of their arrival. Please, come with us.”

The entrance to the prison was up a ramp that twisted around the side of the building. There was an exposed edge on one side, leading to a sheer drop onto rocks below. Two of Ava’s captors held her arms securely and marched with her in between them, as if afraid she might either try and push one of them to their death, or try and jump herself. Finally they arrived at the platform on which the main part of the prison had been built. The platform was surrounded with a wire fence, topped with spikes to dissuade anyone from attempting to climb it. The ground was covered in orange sand dotted with footprints. Ava scuffed the toe of her boot in the sand, watching it cling to the leather.

“Wait here,” one of the prison guards instructed, and went inside to fetch the warden. Trying to distract herself, Ava looked through the wire fence at the desert landscape. The sands stretched out for miles, and she thought she could see the hills of the city of Heng in the far distance. The sky was a clear azure colour, and the sun streamed down and glittered in the swirling dust and the heatwave.

Ava had never fully appreciated how beautiful the desert was until now, when she had no more time to see it. She swallowed and clenched her jaw, hoping the tightened muscle would stop any flicker of emotion from betraying her.

The warden appeared a minute later. He was a Scorchlander, taller than most Scorchlanders, with white hair tied into a loose ponytail and a well-kept beard. His glowing yellow eyes regarded the prisoners intensely for a minute or two. Ava stared back, her jaw aching. Finally the warden let out a sudden, short laugh that made Ava jump.

“Fresh meat for the torture table, eh?” He strode forward, his hand grabbing Ava’s chin and tilting her head back. He turned her head from side to side and smiled. His teeth were mottled with plaque. “On behalf of Lord Tengu, welcome to your new home.” He moved over to Ruka, who had been shoved roughly forwards, and pushed his face into hers. He licked his lips. “It’s a bit on the small side, but a lick of piss on the walls should make it _sparkle_.”

“We’ll take it from here,” one of the prison guards told Marisa and the samurai who’d escorted them.

Ava didn’t even get a last look at her captors. She was bundled into the prison along with Ruka. The ground floor was large and circular, with various wooden partitions forming makeshift walls. In some ways, it was similar to Lady Sanda’s noble house, but even Lady Sanda had not had this much living space.

“You’ll find the toilet in the corner next to your foot,” the warden said. “Want to know when your food’s getting served?”

Ava and Ruka stayed silent.

“Whenever-I-give-a-fuck-o’clock!” He paused somewhat theatrically, but seemed unperturbed by the lack of reaction. “You’re gonna love it here. Great choice of meals… shit scraped fresh from the floor, rotten gutter entrails, or the tongue scalpel special. Let’s hope you don’t have weak stomachs, eh?”

They were taken up another ramp to the first floor. This was evidently some kind of communal area for the guards; the part of the room Ava could see was filled with tables and barrels. The tables were currently unoccupied, and any guards in the room were standing to attention. There was sand worn into the grooves of the metal floor, and a few electric torch-posts barely illuminated the gloom.

“Dark and dismal,” said the warden. “Perfect for the likes of you.”

The final ramp took them to the prison area. Again, the partitions kept Ava from seeing most of the room, but she could make out a number of iron cages. Four burly-looking prison guards were standing by the ramp, as if they’d been awaiting their arrival.

“And this is where I leave you for now,” the warden purred. “But one last thing.” He laid a hand on each of their shoulders, and put his head between theirs as if he was a teenage girl about to let her friends in on a piece of particularly scandalous gossip. “Nobody cares about you. And it’s _my_ job to make you suffer.” He released his grip. “Process them,” he said to the guards, then left with the rest of his entourage.

Ava’s teeth were beginning to ache, but she didn’t unclench her jaw. If there was one thing she refused to do no matter what, it was giving her guards any sense of satisfaction at seeing just how terrified she was.


	12. Bounty

With their captives now in the custody of the Vault warden, Ceras wasn’t quite sure what to do with himself. The samurai who had helped bring them in were standing on the platform, their faces impassive. They seemed to be waiting for something. Ceras, who didn’t fancy walking back with a group of United Cities soldiers, turned to leave, but Marisa grabbed his arm.

“Aren’t you forgetting something?” she hissed.

“Huh?”

“We haven’t been _paid_ yet.”

“Oh, right. I thought you didn’t care about that?” As Marisa glared, Ceras couldn’t resist adding, “Was capturing the doctor less rewarding for you than you thought it’d be?”

Her face confirmed Ceras’s suspicions. He wondered if she was simply disappointed her moment had been overshadowed by the presence of the samurai, or if she was actually feeling guilty for the way she’d treated Ava. Probably the former, if he was being honest. It was a shame. She could have been a good person if Lady Sanda hadn’t dug her claws in her.

“Soon this’ll all be over,” Marisa said, “and I can finally be free of you two.”

“Oh, come on. We haven’t grown on you just a little bit?”

The sun beamed down, burning away at Ceras’s already burnt skin. He stepped into the shadows of the prison building, but did not dare cross the threshold. The shade did little to stop him feeling like he was on fire, but it was at least a little cooler than standing directly in the heat. Soon enough he’d be on his way back to Bark, wandering the exposed dunes with two sullen companions and no shelter. It was not an experience he was looking forward to.

_At least when I’m back I’ll be able to put this sorry mess behind me._

He was only glad they’d been able to capture the fugitives quickly. Two of them, at least. He tried not to think too much about the Scorchlander girl he’d caught sight of above the path the night before. The moonlight had caught her face as she’d peered over the ridge, and the terror in her eyes had been unmistakeable. How old had she been, sixteen? Little more than a kid.

Ceras knew that he’d pay dearly for his mistake if the United Cities ever found out he’d let her escape. He also knew that he couldn’t have watched them drag her to the Vault knowing what would happen to her. Young or old, male or female, all that mattered to Tengu was that you’d crossed him, and he’d happily throw you to the sadistic warden and leave you rotting in your own filth. Ceras looked back up at the prison, and wondered how long Ava and Ruka were going to last before the Vault drove them to madness.

The warden came back out again and invited the samurai patrol inside. Ceras, Kuto and Marisa were left waiting in the sun. Marisa folded her arms, huffed a strand of dark hair out of her face, and leaned against the fence. Kuto sat down with a pained exhale, gripping his injured arm. He looked pretty busted up, the lower half of his face being a mess of bruises and swellings. One of his teeth had been knocked loose. He saw Ceras’s expression and shrugged.

“I shall wear these marks with honour. She was an _almost_ worthy opponent.”

 _Praise indeed,_ Ceras thought.

Ten minutes passed. The samurai left the prison and began the walk towards the gate. Marisa, who had begun to look resigned, made to follow them, but she was called back by the warden.

“Aren’t you the leader of this group?”

“Oh, yeah, I am,” Marisa said, as Kuto and Ceras scowled at her.

“Excellent. Well, the three of you had better come inside.”

In comparison with the blistering heat outside, the ground floor of the prison was almost icy. The warden went over to a desk in the centre of the room and pulled out three sacks of coin. “I hope you understand that, given the circumstances in which those two rats were brought in, I cannot pay you a full bounty. However, you deserve some recompense for your efforts.” He handed one of the sacks to Marisa. “Ten thousand cats.”

“Thank you.”

“I do not care for the bounty,” Kuto growled as a sack was offered to him.

“Oh, just take it,” Marisa said wearily.

“I have a sense of honour, unlike you two.”

Realising he wasn’t going to convince Kuto, the warden offered the money to Ceras instead. He looked at it, then back at the warden.

“What are you waiting for?” Marisa was evidently keen to be on her way. “You’ve been talking about that bounty enough, I’d have thought you’d be snatching it and running out the door.”

“No,” Ceras said, turning away. “Turns out I have a sense of honour too.”

He did not speak to the other two as they left, though Marisa kept shooting him odd looks. The guards escorted them down the ramp and out through the gates. Ceras noticed the samurai patrol were little more than specks in the distance now. He wasn’t sorry to see them go.

“Well then,” Marisa said finally, “I guess that’s it.”

“Lady Sanda isn’t going to send you out after the other two?” Ceras couldn’t resist asking.

Marisa scowled at him. “She specifically wanted the Okranite, and I delivered her to the Vault. Anyone else is Emperor Tengu’s job.”

“Wasn’t the Okranite the one what saved your life?”

“On Lady Sanda’s orders. Stop feeling sorry for her, or trying to get me to feel sorry for her. She’s a murderer.”

“Right.” Ava hadn’t looked like a murderer. She certainly didn’t look like she’d had the strength to take the slave master’s head off in a clean blow. And she hadn’t killed Lady Sanda’s guards, regardless of whatever Lady Sanda had later chosen to do with them. Ceras had gotten the impression her hands were far cleaner than most people’s.

“Since when did you have a _sense of honour_ , anyway?” Marisa said. “Thought mercenaries sold themselves to the highest bidder.”

“Oh, so you’re going to question my motivations but not Kuto’s?”

“Kuto wants to kill things. You want to… what?”

“I dunno,” Ceras admitted. “I’m figuring things out.”

They went down the hill and onto the Skimsands. The Great Desert lay ahead of them to the east. Marisa glanced around to check there were no skimmers in sight, and came to a stop. Her face was slightly scrunched in the blinding desert light.

“Why go back?” Ceras asked.

“Why go back? I have a report to deliver to Lady Sanda.”

“And money in your pocket.”

“I’m not about to be labelled a deserter. Some of us have duties and obligations.”

“Yeah?” He regarded her sadly. “Well, I hope they make you happy.”

“You’re coming back with us, right?”

Ceras looked at Marisa. He still thought she looked like Eira, but the resemblance was less striking than it had been. “Nah,” he said. “I don’t think I am.”

“First _I’ve_ heard of this,” Kuto said.

“Because I’ve been thinkin’ it over all day. I ain’t going back to that life. Like I said, I wanted to retire someday. No more sitting in a bar waiting to be hired, I’m gonna do my own thing from now on. Lost me taste for this business, to be honest.”

Marisa snorted. “All this over the Okranite and her worthless friend?”

He shrugged. “Don’t you fancy a change of scene too after all this? You got your… what, revenge or whatever? Why don’t you come with me?”

“What?”

“Well, y’know, we could leave the United Cities, go somewhere else, do something else, _be_ someone else. I ain’t got much tying me to Bark, and all you got is that bitch of a woman to order you about until she gets tired of you.”

Marisa drew her _nodachi_. “Don’t criticise Lady Sanda in my hearing.”

“That’s the way we’re playing it, is it?” Ceras said, staring unfazed at the blade. “Well then. Guess this is goodbye. Kuto?”

“If you’re inviting me to come with you,” Kuto said, “forget it. I still have lost honour to restore with the Mercenary Guild.”

“Fine then.”

“You’re mad,” said Marisa. “Where are you even going to go?”

Ceras shrugged again, but he thought he had an inkling. He was starting to get sick of the sunburn, and the skimmers, and permanently having sand in his boots. The Holy Nation’s river-lands were green and wet and dotted with little farms. It’d make a change. Besides, the girl had most likely fled there, alone and terrified. If he could find her, maybe he could help her. Given the role he’d played in capturing her friends, it was the least he could do. _If she doesn’t try and attack me on sight._

“Well,” Marisa said, “if we’re parting here…”

She stiffly extended a hand. It took Ceras a second to realise she was wanting to shake his. He took it, wincing at how tight her grip was. “Goodbye then, Marisa. Hope you find your own happiness, whatever it is.”

“You too, I guess.”

Whatever else Ceras might have been going to say to her was interrupted by a meaty thump on the back.

“Hey!”

“Good job on not being a _completely_ honourless drunkard,” Kuto boomed. “Though you are still a stinking one.”

“Oh, why don’t you confess your love for each other already.”

Ignoring Marisa, Ceras stepped forward and gave Kuto a one-armed hug. Kuto froze. “ _Is_ the flatskin confessing his love?”

“Sorry. I take it the Shek don’t do hugs? And just… thump each other instead?”

“Thumping is for warriors. _Hugs_ are for lovers.”

“Oh, right.” He thumped Kuto back.

“When you two are _quite_ done,” Marisa said, “I’d like to at least be in Stoat by nightfall.”

Ceras and Kuto broke apart. Kuto lumbered over to Marisa, who was looking apprehensive, but the expression quickly faded from her face when she realised Kuto wasn’t about to hit her.

“Right then,” Ceras said. “Better be off.”

“Going west?” Marisa commented as Ceras turned towards Okran’s Shield.

“Yeah, I guess.” He didn’t look at their faces. Even if they’d wanted to, they couldn’t follow him into Holy Nation territory. “Got some things I want to do there.”

“Hmm. Well, take care.”

He paused and glanced back when he was a little way across the sands. The hulking Shek and the slightly-limping human hadn’t stopped, moving deeper into the desert towards Stoat. Then they crested a sand-dune and were lost from view.

Ceras hoped they would be OK. He trusted in their swordwork to get them at least as far as a travelling patrol or caravan who would be able to protect them the rest of the way. It wasn’t as if either of them was in the best shape at the moment.

The shadow of Tengu’s Vault followed Ceras across the Skimsands. He tried not to think too much about the two people he’d helped send there. All he could do was hope that the Vault warden had mercy on them. Ceras rubbed his greying temples, and wondered if the Holy Nation sold alcohol.

 

* * *

 

Kat didn’t dream, but her fitful sleep was punctuated with dust and grit and fear. The morning light pushed at her eyelids, trying to rouse her, but she simply rolled over and buried her face in the ground. A few moments of rest after a night of running and hiding and not daring to stop. Was it really too much to ask for?

“Traveller!” A hand shook Kat’s shoulder, and her fogged brain reluctantly awoke. She stirred, coughing grey dust out of her mouth, and stared up at the fuzzy shape of a paladin in gleaming metal armour. “You look terrible, brother. Are you wounded?”

 _Brother_. Kat was glad her shirt was loose and untucked. “Um… no.” Her voice felt thin and reedy. She coughed again. “Just, uh, tired.”

“Well, it is as well that you have reached Okran’s lands. Here you belong under the Holy Lord Phoenix’s watch, blessed be his name.”

“Blessed be his name,” Kat mumbled back.

 _Okran’s lands_. When she’d fallen, exhausted, and found herself unable to get up and keep running, she hadn’t realised she was so close to safety.

Looking around, Kat could see that she was sitting in the choke-point of Okran’s Shield. She’d passed through once before, a lifetime ago, but the paladins had been decidedly cooler towards her then, and she had not lingered long. Now they were smiling at her in an almost kindly fashion, deceived by her short hair and boyish frame.

She struggled to her feet. Standing hurt, with her feet bruised and blistered and her ankles aching from running all night in boots that had come unlaced somewhere on the Skimsands. There was gritty sand on her cheek from where she’d been lying on the ground, and she scrubbed it away with her fingernails. “I’m… um, sorry. Just needed a sleep.”

The paladin looked her up and down, hearing the distinctive long vowels of Shark in her voice. “A swamp-lander, are you? Well, young man, you are welcome here. We look out for one another, as brothers. Now, you look as though you could use a good meal.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small parcel. “Take my rations, brother. You look as though you need them more than me.”

“I… thank you.”

“And my waterskin. You look dehydrated. Where are you travelling, brother? We can ask a patrol to escort you.”

“Blister Hill,” said Kat; it was the closest city to Okran’s Shield, and just under a day’s walk away. She could be there by sundown. There’d be the chance to rest in an inn, and she’d be able to use the money in the bag to stock up on more food. She had the feeling she needed to do something else, but fear and exhaustion had slowed her brain to a crawl. Her fingers fumbled at her boots, re-lacing them as tightly as she could, but tying the knots was more of a challenge.

“Perhaps you ought to rest a while and recover,” said the paladin. “Nothing will harm you here.”

But the thought of United Cities patrols just a short distance away was enough to instil a sense of urgency in Kat. “No, I… I should make haste.”

“In that case, remain here for a moment. We will send a patrol out. Our lands are safe enough, but there is still the occasional bandit. And river raptors can be dangerous if you stumble into a nest or disturb their young.”

The thought of being escorted by a full Holy Nation patrol was enough to make Kat shudder, but she knew it was a risk she was going to have to take. Tiredness had sent her muscles out of sync, and Ava’s rusted katana was no match for something that was stronger and better-fed than Kat was.

 _Ava_.

Kat’s mind didn’t seem to want to process it properly. As she replayed the events of the previous night in her head, it kept skipping over the specifics of what had happened. All she knew was that Ava had been caught and Ruka had charged in with the full expectation that she too would be captured, or possibly killed.

But neither of them were dead. Perhaps that was worse. If they’d been killed Kat could have mourned and moved on. Being alive and imprisoned in one of the most secure fortresses in the land was enough to make Kat wonder if she could have done something more, or if there was still anything she could do.

She rubbed at her eyes and drank deeply from the waterskin. There was nothing she could do. She was just a kid, completely on her own, her most valuable possession being a battered sword she didn’t know how to use. She’d never felt more helpless, not even when she’d been shackled in the desert. Where was she going to go? What was she going to do?

 _Make it worth my fight_ , Ruka had said. They’d both made promises to Ava. Ruka had upheld hers and had sacrificed everything to do so. She’d distracted the samurai for Kat, too. Kat knew she had to stay alive, stay free; if not for herself, then for the other two.

Another patrol, this one smaller than the one that had found Kat, appeared from the northern gate. They nodded at Kat respectfully. Kat scrambled to her feet, only briefly clutching at the wall for support, and forced a friendly smile. “Thank you.”

“So, brother,” said one of the sentinels as they set off, “what brings you to Okran’s lands on our day of prayer?”

Kat had had a little time to think of a cover story, but she was hazy on the exact details. In the end she decided to go with a slightly distorted version of the truth. “I was with some friends in the desert,” she said. “We were attacked. I barely got away with my life.”

“And your friends?”

“Gone.”

The sentinel nodded grimly. “The desert is a harsh and unforgiving place. It teems with skimmers and foul opportunists who steal people away as slaves. Not to mention the unholy ones who plague those lands, the horned beasts and the stickmen and Narko’s metallic monstrosities. But you are safe here, brother.”

Kat nodded. As they moved on, a youth in an orange robe tapped her on the shoulder. “Excuse me, brother, forgive my rudeness, but is it true that the desert women keep their men submissive to them and force them to perform the lewdest of acts?”

Kat stared at the young man’s bright, earnest eyes. He wasn’t actually much older than she was. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, it’s very true. The woman chooses her husband by buying him at the market, and if he is defective, she sells him again.”

The sentinel, who clearly knew better, chuckled. The young man, looking both delighted and horrified, fell silent and did not ask Kat any further questions. Kat, realising that she was probably pushing her luck, decided to stay quiet too. The more attention she drew to herself, the more likely she was to be found out. She had a horrible feeling that the patrol wouldn’t take kindly to having been hoodwinked by a woman.

Keeping up the pretence became more and more difficult as the time went by. Kat felt a growing pressure on her bladder, but there was nowhere for her to discreetly relieve herself, and besides, she was still bleeding. Her kidneys still ached from her earlier thirst, and she knew going to the toilet would probably be an unpleasant experience.

The path joined a stream not too far from Blister Hill, and the patrol came to a rest. The ground beneath their feet had become green and fertile, and the smoky, slightly singed smell that had wafted in the breeze from the Iron Valleys had been replaced by a fresher, lusher scent. Kat surreptitiously tipped out the last of Ruka’s sake and replaced it with water. A slight alcoholic tinge remained as she drank, but it was soothing rather than unpleasant.

“This is the Wend,” explained the sentinel from earlier. “The main river which brings life to our lands. Truly a blessing from the Lord of Light.”

“Quite,” Kat mumbled. She finished off the waterskin and refilled it again. The stream was not particularly fast-flowing, but it looked clean enough. It would have to do. If she’d been alone, she might have taken the opportunity to strip and wash herself, but there was no way she could get away with that here.

“Do you have a copy of the Holy Flame, brother?” said a paladin.

“No, sir.”

“Can you read?”

She nodded.

“Well, here you are. Take this.” A leather-bound book was pressed into her hands. “Carry it with you on your travels. You shall find great solace in the untainted word of Okran. And perhaps when you are in Blister Hill, you might like to acquire some more of our holy books. We have many important teachings from the Holy Lord Phoenix himself, blessed be his name.”

Kat took the book politely, feigned interest in it for a few minutes, then carefully put it in her backpack. It had clearly been mass-produced, with cheap paper and a small, almost illegible typeface. She wondered if it was worth anything. “Thank you.”

“It is no trouble, brother. A young man of your age should be especially careful in this world. Let the Holy Flame guide you on your travels and protect you from the pleasures of the flesh you shall no doubt be tempted by. From one man to another…” He laid an almost fatherly hand on Kat’s shoulder. “Be wary of the non-Okranite women. They are foul seductresses and deceivers of Narko.”

“Oh, really? I didn’t know about that.” Kat tried to keep her face neutral, but a flicker in her expression betrayed her. The paladin’s eyes widened, and the hand suddenly slipped off her shoulder.

“Boy. What is your name?”

“Uh… um… Longstoat.”

“Is it? You don’t sound very sure.” The paladin rose to his feet. The other men looked at him uncertainly, then rose to their feet too. “I see now that you have a woman’s shape. Deceiver! You leech off our goodwill under a pretence? Was your tale trickery, too?”

“N-no, it was true!” Kat backed away but found her movement impeded by a boulder behind her. “I’m not from around here, I didn’t know the rules, I’m sorry! I didn’t want to be rude and correct the gentleman back in Okran’s Shield…”

“And yet you lied to us when we asked you for your name? What is that around your neck?”

Kat’s hand automatically went to the medallion, half-expecting to feel its outline under her shirt, but her fingers brushed engraved metal instead. It must have fallen out when she’d bent down to refill the waterskin. “Just a present from my mother.”

“Let me see it.”

“I don’t know where she got it, maybe she stole it or something, I don’t know, I’m sorry if it belongs to the Holy Nation because if it does, I really didn’t know about that and I’m sorry, I know how bad this looks but…”

A hand grabbed the medallion, holding it up to the light. Kat tried to claw it back but the paladin’s grip was too strong for her.

“Not only a woman,” he breathed as he turned the medallion over, “but a Shek sympathiser.”

“I can explain!”

“Silence.” He released his grip on the token. “I don’t want to hear another lie from your mouth.”

The men had all drawn their weapons. Kat reached for her katana. They had her more or less surrounded, but if she could somehow dart between the two orange-clad men who were blocking the route to the main path…

She made a break for it, but the men in orange closed ranks and she found herself thudding into a human wall. She tried to barge her way through but her elbows had little impact besides causing a few groans of pain. A hand grabbed her by the backpack, nearly lifting her off her feet, and pulled her backwards.

“An ally of the Shek Kingdom, are you?” The paladin twisted Kat’s arm and she cried out. “Any ally of our sworn enemy is no friend of Okran.”

“Please, I didn’t want any trouble…”

“Disarm her. And take her backpack as well.”

A knife cut through the leather straps of Kat’s scabbard, and the katana was taken away. Kat, her arm being held in a painful, unnatural grip, used the only recourse still available to her and kicked her assailant between the legs. The heel of her boot planted between the two metal plates of the paladin’s armour and he let go with a scream.

“Heretical woman! Surrender to Okran!”

Another man grabbed her from behind, lifting her off her feet. She yelled and kicked, but this time her flailing legs were unable to connect with anything other than empty air. She’d been so close to Blister Hill… why hadn’t she kept her head down and her mouth shut? Why had she let them see the medallion? _Stupid, stupid, stupid_.

It was not a dignified walk to Blister Hill. Kat found herself being marched in the middle of the group, a hand gripping the shoulder of her shirt, iron clubs ready to batter her down if she stepped out of line. She carefully reached a hand to her neck and swivelled the cord of the medallion, very slowly, until the knot was under her throat. With no blade, she resorted to picking the knot apart with her fingernail, trying not to draw any further attention to herself.

Luckily, the patrol had more pressing concerns than her apparent fidgeting. The knot loosened, and Kat pulled the pendant off the cord. This _did_ go noticed.

“What are you doing, woman? Put your hands by your sides!”

Kat slid the pendant into her trouser pocket. It wasn’t a good hiding place, as they would be likely to search her, but it was better than wearing an allegiance she didn’t have on full display for all to see. Maybe she could still talk her way out of this one.

As they entered Blister Hill, Kat realised the Okranites had no interest in whatever testimony she might have had. Of course not. She was a woman, and they’d already made up their minds as to what she was. They’d never be convinced.

“Stay back!” the paladin who’d originally seized her called to the townsfolk. “This is a child of Narko!”

The paladin’s words did nothing to dispel the first strains of the curious crowd; in fact, more and more onlookers came to see what all the fuss was about. Civilians gaped openly as the entourage passed, and a few men hurried their wives away.

Well, in for a cat, in for a thousand. It made no difference in the end. “Yeah, you’d better drag your women away! Wouldn’t want them to realise they’re equal to the menfolk, would you?”

An iron club rapped the back of her leg. “Silence, heretic.”

“Oh, are you all so insecure in your faith that you’re scared of what I might have to say? I’ve met skimmers with more backbone than you.”

The iron club hit her in the bladder. Kat doubled up, sure she was about to wet herself.

“Oh, Okran,” murmured the paladin, “have mercy on this tainted one…”

“ _Fuck_ your god!” Kat howled.

There were shocked gasps from the crowd. A few people spat on the ground as she went by. The patrol dragged her through another set of gates to what was evidently a barracks area, with a few large buildings and a number of guards wandering about. She was led up a set of steps and into what she assumed to be a police station of some kind.

“Good afternoon, Inquisitor,” the paladin said.

“The Inquisitor, are you? Burnt anyone alive recently for not following the word of Okran?”

The Inquisitor did not look amused. “You allowed this woman’s tongue to wag all the way through Blister Hill? I’ve heard what she’s been saying, we all have.”

“Well, we…”

“Put her in a cage down here. Even if it wasn’t Prayer Day, I’m not having her heresy being shouted, quite literally, from the rooftop.”

“Whatever you say, you fragile bully.”

“On second thoughts,” said the Inquisitor, “I have to work down here all day, and I’m not willing to listen to it either. Maybe she’ll be a little more cooperative without a tongue.”

It suddenly occurred to Kat that she’d made a serious misjudgement. “No, please…”

A knife gleamed in the flickering torchlight. Kat shrank back, her lips pressed together, and squeezed her eyes shut. She heard a tearing sound as something was cut. Someone pinched her nose, forcing her mouth open, and she sobbed.

To her surprise, she found soft fabric being stuffed into her mouth, rather than a sharp metallic blade. A second strip of fabric was tied around her face to hold the gag in place. The Inquisitor looked disappointed, but one of the sentinels said, “With all due respect, sir, a temporary solution may be a little more prudent. Her lips will praise Okran, given time.”

Someone yanked Kat’s arms backwards, tying more of the fabric around her wrists. It didn’t feel very secure, and she was pretty sure that she could free her hands and spit out the cloth if she tried, but given the Inquisitor’s earlier threat, she didn’t dare struggle. She was shoved into a cage in the Inquisitor’s line of sight, and the door was locked.

“Well, thank you for bringing her in,” said the Inquisitor.

“She’s not just a heretic, she’s a Shek sympathiser! She has a medallion…”

“Thank you, uh…”

“Alec, sir.”

“Thank you, Alec. However, it makes little difference to where she’ll be going.”

 _Where_ would she be going? Kat tried not to think too much about the stories she’d heard of Inquisitors burning people alive for minor transgressions.

“Just thought you should know, sir. In case they send the beasts to rescue her, sir.”

“Is that really likely?”

“No, sir.”

“Well, then. Be on your way. You have done well. I shall send word to your superiors.”

“Thank you, sir.”

When the men had gone, the Inquisitor walked up to Kat’s cage and stuck his face into the bars. He wasn’t at all ugly, quite the opposite, but Kat found herself focusing on his slight underbite and the few straggling hairs that had escaped his otherwise well-groomed beard. His breath was almost perfumed.

“Don’t try anything. There are manned turrets on the roof. It doesn’t give us pleasure to have to shoot you down. Understood?”

She nodded. For a moment she thought he was going to mock her like the slavers had sometimes done, but he just shook his head in resignment and went back to his desk. He stood there for a while, stamping forms and occasionally writing letters.

Time passed. Kat poked at the bars with the tip of her boot. The pressure in her bladder was becoming too great to ignore, and she had no idea whether the Inquisitor was planning to let her piss herself in her cage. Eventually, hearing her moans of discomfort, he got up and brought a bucket over, untying her hands so she could piss. “Go on.”

It was humiliating, pissing in a bucket under the watchful eye of a Holy Nation Inquisitor, but Kat barely cared. To his credit, he did look away slightly, a brave move considering she could have thrown the contents of the bucket in his face. She looked at him pleadingly when he went to re-tie her hands. He relented, probably from the thought of having to supervise her every bodily function.

“I make good on my threats, Narko’s spawn. If I hear anything out of you that’s not a prayer to Okran, you _will_ lose your tongue. Understood?”

She nodded again and he pulled the gag from her mouth. The cage was locked again. She slumped onto the iron floor of the cage, avoiding the bucket in the corner, and wondered how the hell she was going to get out of this one.

What was worse, Kat now knew what her foggy brain hadn’t been able to articulate earlier. Never mind Ruka’s instructions to go to Okran’s Shield; she had to find Rei and warn her. With Ava and Ruka in the hands of the United Cities, there was every chance they would be tortured for the location of the fugitives the samurai had not been able to catch. And when that happened, World’s End would be the first place Tengu’s hunters would go looking.

But it was too late now.

“Oh, Rei,” Kat whispered. “I’m so sorry. Please don’t get caught as well…”

“What are you doing?” the Inquisitor demanded, looking up from his letters.

Kat looked up at the jailkeeper with a sombre expression.

“I’m praying.”


End file.
